An Outdoorsman’s Journal: Last-minute musky

Hello friends, I guess that you could say that I am a tradition-based person. This will be my 54th year in a row at deer camp as a Red Brush Hunter, and this last weekend I enjoyed the company of some of my good friends from my days as a weapons loader at the 115th Fighter Wing in Madison at Truax Field. This would be the 26th year in a row that I have been a part of what we call Operation Musky.

We stay at a first-rate, very friendly motel called The Hiawatha in Eagle River. Besides my good friends and now their children and grandchildren from Truax, many of the guys from The Red Brush Gang and some of their friends have joined in for a weekend of laughter and musky fishing where in our very low-key outing, each boat is a team and the competition is based on inches of fish caught. To highlight my reality, I am considered a bit of a joke but a very fun one, as I have never caught a measurable musky during Operation Musky and to be perfectly honest, do not care.

Saturday, Aug. 23 — High 64, low 47 Last night the majority of this group — who is between the ages of 13 and 76 — simply had a blast together as we had a bit of a picnic at The Hiawatha and laughed a lot. Today, my partner Jeff Moll, who did 23 years at Truax, and I would be giving her our best shot. I told Jeff that the day before I had a vision that this was our year. Jeff and I would be in Jeff’s Lund Alaskan, and we fished each day until the hours were over, which today would be 8 p.m.

I had not caught a fish in years — as in not even a bass or northern pike — on this outing, and was pleasantly surprised when I caught a 17-inch smallie early in the day on a blaze orange bucktail. After about two hours of casting and very little sleep the night before, we decided to try trolling, and I put on a red and white Creek Chub Pikie 3000. As is the norm, Moll and I never stop giving each other verbal abuse and had a blast. Holy moly, was I ever surprised when my pole started bending and it was fish on. My musky was not large and since we never catch any, we did not know the exact rules on the size minimum. We measured it on a bump board and it was exactly 30 inches, then released it. I sent the pic and numbers to Tommy Gilbertson, who was my boss back in the day, and was told 30 inches was the size they have to be to count. After that we fished for what would be a total of 12 hours of casting, trolling, and mostly just bull crapping with each other. When we got back to The Hiawatha, my fish was the only one registered and so at least for a night, I was king. In our northern pike side bet, my bear hunting partner Doug Cibulka was leading with a 28-inch fish and Andrew Gilbertson was in second with a 27.5.

I might add that this outing is even more fun because we have several groups of three generations and quite a few father-and-son teams. Also, Gary Jensen, who is one of the old-timers, has his son Brian and 13-year-old grandson Kenneth, and young Kenneth was a big part of creating this year’s trophies. Sunday, Aug. 24 — High 62, low 43 The weather this weekend was chilly and I liked that. My buddy Moll made me stay up late again last night and I guess you could say that we have been doing that for well over 50 years. This morning, I was confident the big 30 would get beat and really had no cares.

Fishing ends at 11 a.m. on Sunday and even though I was not aware of it, my stepson Joey Dushek landed a 33-inch musky at 10:30, thus putting Jeff and me in second. Jeff and I always do everything to the bitter end and at 10:54, I had a good hit on the Creek Chub. At 10:56, we landed a 34-inch musky that, naturally, was released.

We had bought two cans of beer just in case and drank them on the long ride back toThe Hiawatha after sending the verification pic to Tommy at exactly 11 o’clock.

I always enjoyed really sucking in this outing over the last 26 years, but it was really fun to win! Sunset