My First St. Clair Casting Musky
- Evan Geist
- Jul 2, 2024
- 3 min read
This Brute of a Four footer finally got me on the board on Lake St. Clair for casting muskies. I have throw baits for 2 years, yes Im a weekend warrior, its not every day and one off days can be tricky to pattern fish, but nonetheless I was finally able to get this big girl in the bag. The conditions of the day were horrendous. 10-15 on average, not that bad but with the thunderstorms and 25mph gusts, occasional 3-4 footers and in an aluminium 18 foot rig that can ruin your day on big water.
My fishing partner, Chris Todd and I really only got about 3 hours of fishing in over the course of 6+ hours on the water before we called it and made the 17 mile run in. This took about an hour and a half due to the conditions and we were bilge pump was ripping half the day to get rain water out of the boat. The only positive really was that it was ~70 degree water temps and 80 degrees outside so even though we were soaked it wasn't all that cold. We had a hunch that when the weather would break for 3o min- hour those windows could produce some fish. We found piles of bait and even saw a giant school of shad get blasted and blowing up on the surface like it was wicked tuna out there. We also saw a dead walleye and smallmouth on the surface with chunks taken out of them. After ripping rubber for a few hours and a couple of follows we maintained our current drift and got annihilated by a rainstorm. We fished through most of it when there wasn't lightning. This passed at 10am and the wind picked up but this weather shift we both looked at eachother and felt things could get going.
I decided the drop the rubber and burn a bucktail. I chose one of my larger baits, a Crown Royal (purple and gold) double 10 Dadson. I threw the bucktail for about 10 minutes when I saw a large brown figure following it in about 20 yards from the boat. I was cooking the bait pretty fast with a 7.1:1 401 Daiwa Prorex (I'm a lefty) on 80# Cortland Master Braid and a 130# Fluorocarbon Leader. I have had at this point in my 2 year musky undertaking at least 15+ fish follow me into the boat, and a few of them stay interested in the figure eight, but never have I had one eat. My other casting fish (not on St. Clair) ate about 75% of the way in on my glide bait retrieve. Anyways, this fish seemed pretty fired up so I got right into my figure 8 and kept my Dadson humming. I was using a 10ft Chaos Shock n' Awe so once my bait got to the boat I stayed calm and changed levels by going deep and as I turned left brought it up in the water column. The fish continued to follow, but since I went deep I couldn't really see her anymore on the outer corner of my first turn, I brought the bait back in towards the boat again aggressively and drove the bait deep and fast. The next move was what go her to eat. I swung it out to the right continuing the figure eight, and hung that son of a gun for a second in that outer corner of the eight. She came out of the depths after I had lost sight of her and inhaled the bucktail. "Got her, got her," I said and Chris was quick on the net. I was in the back left corner of the boat the fish was head shaking and took me around to the back right- I lifted hard and we got her in the bag within 5 seconds.
What an absolute Win for the day. She shook the hooks while in the net, we put her on the bump board and measured in at 48" without squeezing the tail. May have been 48.5, but either way a true four footer and not only my first St. Clair casting fish, but one boatside where I feel my learning curve has struggled the most! It was and will be a special moment in my life as a fisherman and a fish that I will never forget. She swam off strong and shortly after 4 footers rolled in and we called it a day. I view the musky as the spirit of the lake, and I finally caught one of them out of this big water! Until next time, tight lines!
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