Pineview Finally!

Moon Phase:

Fishing Time: 7:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Weather: sunny, clear, 80's

I have always wanted to get back up to Pineview to chase some of those toothy Tiger Muskies. I have only tried it once and lucked into catching one back in 2004 while staying at Moose Hollow with the family. It was about 30 inches long but real skinny. Now I finally convinced someone to make the trip again. JJ and his dad got the bug to catch one of these weird looking creatures, so we headed up there this past weekend. It was a beautiful morning and the lake was glass. The Wakeboarders were not on the water yet so the lake was all ours. We started fishing out of Anderson Cove and I was the first to find action when I landed this nice Smallmouth.

I caught it throwing a gold rattling crankbait. Happy with the catch but longing for a musky I soon switched to a chartreuse and bright orange curly tail jig in order to entice the toothy ones. It didn't do much for them but shortly after I found another Smallmouth on the end of my line and pulled this guy in. After this one swam off, we went on a long period of drought. I threw everything I could think of that might entice one of these elusive Tiger Muskies, and couldn't buy a bite. I had one follow my jig all the way to the boat only to turn away at the last second and go strait back down into the green water. The weirdest part of the whole trip was that I could see the Muskies everywhere! They were just basking in the sun right next to the shoreline. The problem was they wouldn't move for anything. I threw all sorts of things their way with not even a look. I actually hit one right on the noggin while retrieving a jig and it just moved a few inches to the side and sat there again. It was driving me nuts! They could have cared less about us. We started floating right over the top of them and they wouldn't move until the boat was inches from hitting them. I tried to take a picture of one of them in the water and it didn't turn out as well as I thought it would, but if you look close in the bottom left hand corner of the picture you will see a long oval looking dark spot, this is one of the basking muskies that we floated right over the top of!

We continued to throw everything in our tackle box trying to entice a hit, but to no avail. JJ finally hooked up on his only Smallmouth of the day with this little tike. He caught it on a drop shot rig with a white with black speckles Senko. After he caught this one we called it a day. But I will be back to try for these toothy guys again they have got me determined to catch one and that is not a good thing for them!!!