T Minus... 6

I had the extreme pleasure of fishing with Dale MacNair from the Ottawa chapter of MCI. Dale's been extremely kind to me as I've made my transition to Ottawa. He's offered to take me "fun fishing" on multiple occasions and even offered to help me find a place to live. Aside from being a good guy, he's also quite the fisherman. Last November (2008), Dale caught one of the (if not THE) largest muskies ever caught and released. The behemoth measured 57 inches in length with a mind-boggling 33 inch girth (the latter measurement was what made the catch "of world record proportions"). Heck, I don't even have a 33 inch waist! As a field editor and contributing writer for Muskies Inc.'s (stateside organization) magazine, I jumped at the opportunity to interview Dale. The tele-interview lasted over an hour, for which most of it I forgot to take notes since I was so enthralled in the story! After the interview, I told Dale I would look forward to fishing with him when I arrived in Ottawa this summer.

Today was the day I had been looking forward to for a long time. Eager with anticipation to hit the prime bite between 0700-0900, Dale and I ventured out to the mighty Ottawa River. Our plan was simple: fish good locations both casting and trolling. We began trolling a large piece of structure that has, historically, been good for Dale and his partners (and us, too, as we have four fish with transmitters on it). Trolling produced nothing, as did casting, so we moved on to another spot. Maybe less than 10 casts at this new location, a nice mid-40 inch muskie follows Dale's lure to the boat and veers away before Dale could go into a figure-8. We made a mental note and moved on.

On the other side of the structure was another buddy of ours: Keean Robertson also of the Ottawa chapter. Keean actually called me last night to see if I had a partner for today. I neglected to mention that though I was fishing with Dale in Dale's boat, I would be bringing all my sampling gear along. After we spoke with Keean on the water, he moved across the river and within minutes was releasing a fish. Dale and I jetted over a minute late as Keean was putting the net away. If I'd been on the ball the night before or that morning and told Keean we had all our sampling gear, the title of this post would be "T Minus... 5". Alas, I dropped the ball. Life goes on.

So Dale and I perservered, with nothing to show for our efforts. We decided casting wasn't going to cut it (bluebird skies + no wind + HOT = not great for casting), but trolling just might! So we proceeded to troll and worked our way toward the area that Dale raised his fish earlier that morning. As we passed over the spot the fish was seen at earlier, my reel's clicker sprang to life ZZZZ...ZZZZZ....ZZZZZ! Fifty-four seconds later and we were staring at a nice 45 inch muskie that we think was the same fish from earlier that morning.

The fish was given the gentle treatment, and no one was around to take pictures of the release, so no photographic evidence exists that we caught the fish (you'll have to take my word for it). The big male powered away and, as most of our other fish have done, went straight to the bottom and remained there for the next two hours.

Hopefully our good luck continues!