This is my favorite fishing story from the summer of 2006.
It was early in the summer, I had just put my boat onto the water a week prior and when I did I had forgotten to bring my bumpers. I moor my boat on the Rideau River and there are large cruisers on this section of the river that can toss around a smaller boat like mine so tying bumpers to the dock was a must.
It was a beautiful warm and sunny Sunday morning, a perfect day to take my 6 years old son Josh fishing at the docks where I moor my boat. I asked my buddy Jerry if he and his son Tyler wanted to join us, Jerry and I fish together quite often and Josh and Tyler are great friends in school as well. This was going to work out very well for me, Jerry would be able to put the worms on the kid’s lines and watch out for them while I would be able to tie up my bumpers.
We had fished off this dock with our sons a couple of times before and there was always tons of sunfish hanging around between the docks and the shoreline. Because this was still early enough in the season not all of the skips where going to be occupied and the kids where going to have a great time. Here’s some pictures from previous times fishing this spot.
Upon arrival there were two young girls already fishing with their parents and it so happened that one of the girls went to the same school as Josh and Tyler. The weeds had filled in nicely and we could see the sunfish hanging around. The boys got setup and off I went to my skip to tie off my bumpers. The fishing action for all of the kids was non-stop, they would just barely get their worm wet when they would pull out a sunfish. Sunfish after sunfish after sunfish. The kids were having the time of their lives.
It only took me a few minutes to tie off my bumpers so I was able to join the kids and help remove the sunfish from their hooks and put on a new worm. The action for the kids was a blast. Previous times when we had fished this spot produced a lot of sunfish action but never as much as today’s. It was obvious that our 2 dozen worms weren’t going to last very long. Kids being kids they began to get over excited and were fooling around a bit too much for our comfort, they were not showing much concern about tripping and falling into the water so fathers being fathers we started to try and control the youngsters. Tyler became very annoyed and out of frustration for being told to calm down and be careful he dropped his rod into the water.
The water was not clear enough to see his rod on the bottom but there was very little current so the rod should be close by. Whenever I had taken out my boat the sonar had shown 3 feet deep at the dock so his rod shouldn’t be too far away or too hard to find. Strangely enough, right after Tyler dropped his rod the sunfish had instantly stopped biting, as if seeing his rod scared them all off. So all of the kids and Jerry walked down to the end of the dock to try another spot.
I had brought the lightest tackle I owned with the hopes I too could have some fun with the sunfish but because the action was so fast and furious for the boys I had not yet had a chance to wet my line. So I grabbed my rod and dug into Jerry’s tackle box and found a large silver spoon. I tied off the spoon to my line and began to drag the bottom with the hopes I could hook into Tyler’s rod. I spent a few minutes dragging this spoon along the bottom all around the area I thought the rod might be when suddenly I felt this huge pull.
FISH ON? NO WAY!!!!!. Here I am with a 5 foot ultra light rod, a huge spoon on the line, my rod tip straight down and the line running under the dock and now I have a large fish on. I don’t recall if I said anything but for once in my life my mind was sharp. “Don’t set the hook,†screamed out in my head, “my tackle can’t handle this fish, the line will break off because of the dock plus I don’t have a net and I had left the camera in the car.†I had amazed myself for thinking so clearly so quickly. I very slowly and carefully started reeling in my line. The fish felt like it weighed 50 pounds because of the light tackle. I couldn’t of had more than 5 feet of line out when this fish struck so with only a few cranks of the handle I got to see this fish. There she was, a long thick silver bodied fish. I seem to recall screaming out “MUSKY†“BIG MUSKY†I know I must have screamed this out because it made this fish take off like a rocket. Once again I amazed myself with my clear and quick thinking because I opened my bail and let her run. She took several feet off the reel before I could feel her let go, she spit out the hook and no harm was done. Of course with all of this excitement everyone came running back to where I was but the fish was already gone.
I had to sit down, my heart was beating at an incredibly high rate and I think I was whispering my gosh my gosh my gosh over and over again. My son asked me to put a fresh worm on his hook and I couldn’t do it because my hands were shaking way too much. I can remember sitting on the bench trembling and shaking, and was unable to calm down.
We didn’t stay there much longer after this incredible event and went home. During the car ride home my son said to me..
“Dadâ€
“Yes Josh†I replied,
“You say the F word a lot†he said to me. I don’t think he meant F as in fish,
“One day you’ll understand what just happened†I tried to explain.
A couple of weekends later when I went back to my boat to go fishing I saw an odd shape tucked next to my boat. It was Tyler’s rod. The parents of the girls who had fished with us that day had somehow found and retrieved his rod and left it next to my boat.
I love this story and for irony I didn't get a single musky all of last year as big as this one.
