Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 18, 1995 TAG: 9506210023
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: E-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The hurt doesn't come from fighting and landing muskies. It comes from marathon casting.
``Ask any muskie fisherman and he will tell you that you keep a sore shoulder,'' said Gordon, who lives in Christiansburg and fishes the New River.
There is a well-known saying among muskie fishermen that it takes 1,000 casts for every muskie hooked. Or is that 10,000?
``It is probably more like 100,000,'' Gordon said.
That's a lot of plugging. And it isn't done with lightweight tackle, either, but with gear heavy enough to toss a lure the size of a keeper bass and beefy enough to handle a catch as large as a chunk of 2-by-8 studding.
Late one afternoon, on a recent outing near Radford, Gordon was casting a Mepps Giant Killer when a muskie grabbed it in its forest of teeth.
Muskie fishing is like that. You spend hours being a casting robot, with seemingly nothing happening, just routine - cast, reel, cast, reel. Then, suddenly, there he is, on your lure, and you have a month's worth of action compressed into an explosive 10 minutes.
The keys to muskie-fishing success are persistence, patience, determination and optimism. Some muskie anglers like to clothe their sport in a garb of mystique, but there are few secrets beyond hard work. If muskie fishermen had a motto, it might be, ``Dry lures don't catch fish.'' You pay your dues, Gordon said.
The fish he hooked was in the shallows. ``In about a foot of water,'' Gordon said. ``Right along the bank.''
You never know why a muskie suddenly strikes a lure after days of sullenness. Is it aggression, hunger, curiosity or just meanness?
This species, more than most, plays a morbid game anglers call ``follow-ups''
``I've had a lot of them recently,'' Gordon said.
That's when a muskie follows your lure, its toothy snout just inches from it, its bulging eyes giving close scrutiny, its elongated body looking menacing, like a stalking submarine. Will he nail your lure before it reaches the boat? Should you alter your retrieve?
It can be agonizing and maddening because the muskie is in control, and he will decide. Most of the time, he decides to swim off at the last second, his V-shaped tail creating a swirl on the surface as he reverses direction. If a muskie can laugh, this is the occasion.
But for Gordon and other muskie fishermen, the next best thing to hooking a muskie is seeing one.
When they do strike, it is with savage aggression. There is a wild rush and a crunch of vice-like jaws, your rod is bent like a rainbow and the drag on your reel is moaning.
That's how it happened recently for Gordon, at about 5:30 p.m. on the New River, when all that casting suddenly paid enormous dividends.
``It was real exciting,'' said Gordon, who was fishing from a boat by himself. Like their prey, most muskie fishermen live a lone-wolf existence on the water. You don't find many partners willing to stick it out. So victory is savored in solitude.
Gordon's fish weighed 32 pounds, 12 ounces. His previous best, landed from the New River a year ago, weighed 31 pounds.
``I guess now it will be another 40 or 50 hours before I catch another one,'' he said.
On the positive side, the best of the muskie-fishing season is approaching.
by CNB