Musky – “The fish of 10,000 casts.”  Ten months ago I recall a few hecklers in the musky blog circles laughing at our decision to fish Illinois’ Fox Chain of Lakes for musky.  After fishing Lake Vermillion in Minnesota three days earlier I began to think – maybe these guys were right.  Could a series of lakes on the outskirts of Chicago really hold enough musky to give us a fighting chance?  Ben Modica of Musky Fix Guide Service has made a living catching musky from these waters so I felt our chances were better than average.

I called Ben the day before to get his thoughts on when the musky bite might be happening today.  He was really hoping we could fish later in the day but given our schedule the best we could hope for was 8am to noon.  We met Ben at Barnacle Bob’s in Antioch, Illinois and were off.  45 minutes later we had our first follow – a smallish sized musky about 35” followed the lure to the boat and quickly swam away.  This was a good sign.  At least they are moving we thought.  30 minutes later another musky approximately 42” came crashing in on the boat following my lure – I furiously tried to entice a strike with a figure eight pull of my lure through the water but the fish only made one turn and then swam away.  Strike Two.  A few minutes later a really big guy came cruising in on Taylor’s lure.  We estimated this one to be 48” long but it didn’t hit.  Was this Strike Three?   No, a fourth follow would come before Taylor would get the thrill of a lifetime when a heavy 39” musky came crashing in.  It was an awesome sight as the musky furiously tried to keep pace with the sweeping lure at the boat’s edge before sinking his teeth into the lure.  With only 18” of line between the fish and the rod tip it was literally like having a tiger by the tail.  Ben was quick with the net and had the fish safely lassoed within 15 seconds.

I would later have a 45 incher on the line only to lose him.  In total we got one in the boat, lost one on the fight, and had six other followers to the boat.  Our heart rate varied from 72 to 144 most of the day.  8 musky’s spotted in four hours.  We were excited and relieved as the Fox paid off.

We departed Antioch, IL around 1PM and were off to Indiana.  The traffic around Chicago was pretty bad given it was early afternoon.  Today’s drive was our second shortest of our journey at just over 95 miles.  Tomorrow we will fish for Skamania Steelhead in the Indiana waters of Lake Michigan.

Today marked our 35^th straight State with no rain, but the forecast doesn’t look good for the morning.  Hopefully the storms will blow through early. 

Finally, we are closing in on 11,000 miles for our journey and have only two weeks before we depart our RV and board a plane for Alaska and Hawaii.