Yesterday I got out with Weeder, Fishhawk, and Cal our ACDelco guy. Weeder and I paired up in my boat and Fishhawk and Cal in the Princecraft.
Off we headed at 6:00am down to Bits & Baits to pick up some Sucker Minnows and fuzzy bucktails. (don't know what they're called yet, but their pretty cool looking in the water). As we arrived at Reeve Craig launch, the sun was just starting to come up and we could tell it was going to be a great day on the water.
After launching the boats, we headed straight down to our first spot anticipating an immediate strike. Low and behold, there was already a boat there.....go figure....it wasn't even light out when we launched and there was already someone else out there. Now that's passion!
Anyway, we setup a distance from our normal starting spot and drifted in about 10 to 15 ft of water along the weed edge. Nothing doing around there. As we drifted a bit longer, the other boat moved off and we free to head in, so off we went. Taking a couple of passes didn't produce anything, and then I hear Weeder exclaim, "Bobber.....fish on sir...fish on!".
I quickly reeled in while positioning the boat, then gave Weeder the OK to set the hook and begin battle. With a quick hook set, the battle was on. Weeder pulled up, reeling in the slack and arching his back as far backwards as it would go, then straighting up only to find that monster pulling his line back down. Right to bottom she seemed to take him. Another shot and a fast reel Weeder was winning the battle again. As he straightened up again, this beast was relentless, pulling down once again....it just did not want to come up. I yelled at Weeder, "C'mon man....who's got who here?" That ticked him off a bit, so he dug in harder.....reel I said...reel. Well, Weeder was like the Grinch discovering he had a heart. He had the strength of not 1 man but 10.
Weeder cranked and cranked and cranked......the beast rose out of the depths and all I hear is......Holy Crap, look at that? Well I looked over the side and couldn't believe my eyes......
Yes that's right, a beautiful 50 incher........36 inches around the girth and oh the colors were amazing.
What's really amazing is how this pilon really did feel like a good fish fighting on the other end. Even moved side to side with the current. Who knew?
Anyway, we fished several other spots, several techniques, and several depths. Threw some bucktails, top-raiders, deep cranks, Super size sluggos, and even had a try at trolling for a while. Nothing seemed to be hitting today. Meanwhile Fishhawk and Cal were either right behind us or right in front of us at most times. Fishhawk lost one at the bridge, and Cal lost one right at the side of the boat. That sucks.
We had 1 hour left and I said to Weeder, well...we can go back to some of the spots we'd already been to....or we could take a little ride and see if my last spot I had on my list would produce. He said it's up to you Bobber...so off we went. As we headed down to the spot, we passed by the other 4 boats on the river that day we kepth seeing everywhere we went, and kept going to what I had hoped would be the little honey hole of the day.
We arrived and began our drift. The weeds were quite thick with a small channel of about 8ft between the two shores, spread 50ft apart. We cast out and could feel every weed on the bottom brush up against our quick strike rigs, boosting the adrenaline with each little tick. All of sudden, my weed ticks started pulling back, then swimming to the side. This was definately a fish. "Fish ON" I said to Weeder. Once again we quickly executed the Musky drill and were ready to do battle in record time. I waited about 5 seconds, gave the rod a little twitch to get the lunge moving away from me, tightened down the drag, positioned my body and set the hook.
The old girl didn't like that too much....off she went twisting and turning, pulling and pushing, thrashing and fighting. "Oh Weeder".....I said....."this is a heavey fish!". I fought her for a few minutes longer and had her coming towards the boat head first. Weeder made quick with the net, a little dip, a little scoop, and there she was.
<b>A beautiful 43" Rideau River Lunge</b>
We quickly got her out of the net and proceeded to remove the hook. This lunge was definately a kicker, and could have been a number 1 boxing contender against Mohamed Ali. As I was leaning down to remove the hook, it gave a fantastic tail buck and slapped me upside the head. I could hear her now......"TAKE THAT!".
Having kept it together, I regained control of her and finished removing the hook from the corner of her mouth. A quick pic and back in the water she went.
After the great beast submerged back into the depths, we had our ritual high 5. I happened to look down as I was cleaning up and found this.....
It's unfortunate that she lost it, and I can only assume that it happened somewhere in the scuffuffel of getting her out of the net, removing the hook, and getting a slap in the face. No worries though....I can assure you that there were about 1000 more still left intact.
Fishhawk and Cal had some luck as well, with Cal hooking and landing his very first musky in the Rideau River. 44 inches of pure power. I don't have the pics for that yet, but when I do I'll either update or Fishhawk will add some additional to this thread.
All in all, a great day on the water for an October day.
Cheers all, and tight lines.
.....oh and nice pylon Weeder!! 
No fish to report 
, just some a$$hole in a big Bayliner cruiser that kept zipping by us while we were fishing, never slowing down 
. Saw him later, parked in front of his "house". Felt like throwing a few dead suckers on board 
