Reflect On Your Roots

My uncle gently placed his tackle box on the canoe floor.  We were tucked up beside a grassy bank on a small river in northern Wisconsin.  He pulled out a battered, black, Heddon Zara Spook that had been with him for many years.  Before I could even ask, he began to explain how much he loved it.  He preferred removing and re-installing the front eyelet to a forward facing position rather than the downward, factory installed position.  I watched as he casted out into the large eddie, directly beneath the rapids we had just run.  His spook danced left and right, diving down and rocketing up, through the foam that had collected on the calmest part of the eddie.  I glanced back and noticed the erratic, sharp, twitching motions he used to give life to the spook.  I had always worked mine with a very predictable rhythm and they never ran beneath or above the water with such acrobatics.  On His second cast into the eddie a 44 inch Musky consumed his spook and forever embedded that moment in my brain.

44" River Musky Caught By Author's Uncle

Fast forward fifteen years.  I am fishing in the rear of my good friends boat on a Minneapolis Metro area lake.  We have been fishing this lake for years and have seen good numbers of large fish using the structure we are fishing.  The fall weather is perfect.  45 degrees and the rain is lightly falling. A 25 mph wind blows strong enough to keep everyone else off the lake.  We know the conditions are perfect.  In my mind I wrestle with thinking everything is perfect for my buddy and not me.  He has the front of the boat and the first cast into most of the good structure.  We both decide to fish lures we have tons of confidence in.  They happen to be the same lure.  I wanted to throw the same color, too, but I ultimately go with a much darker version.  We fall into our casting rhythm, trying to get close enough to the weed edge without getting caught up in it.

I can barely see the baitfish pattern, Hang Ten Manta beneath the churning waves.  As we weave in and out, following the weed edge, the wind shifts slightly and certain spots along the edge become more calm and visible.  I can see the most dense patches of weeds and cast right up next to them, knowing they will be excellent ambush positions for larger fish.  I reel up the slack after a cast and begin working the Manta tight to the thicker weeds.  Seeing my Manta move through the patches of weeds brings back memories and I reflect on the times with my uncle and all that he taught me during those river Musky trips.  I mimic the erratic, sharp twitching motions I had witnessed so long ago, and dance my manta through the weeds.  After a handful of erratic glides a musky rushes through the slightly murky water and t-bones the manta.  I get a full side view of the fish upon impact and after a quick, sweeping hook-set, immediately exclaim, “fish…big fish!”  This is the reward we expect on such a day.  After a well fought battle and multiple drag peeling runs, my buddy, Adam, put the net under my personal best to date.

Author's 53" Personal Best

These days, there is a vast forest of techniques in the musky fishing world. The techniques range from simple, straight retrieves to whacky, rod splashing figure eights, but we all (or most of us) have past experiences that have sent roots deep down into our fishing soil.  The fruit we bear from these experiences are unique and valuable to each of us.  My buddy often retrieves his Manta in a completely different way than me, but he has confidence from his own influential experiences. These experiences have grown and shaped his technique.  We talk about our differences all the time and know we are more successful and dynamic because of them, especially when fishing together.  On that day my presentation and technique won over a near 40 lb. fish, but on any other day a different technique might give up a trophy.

The important concept to understand from this example is if we were both doing the same, popular thing, neglecting our roots, we both might have missed that fish.  Reflect on your roots and be true to what you know.  Yes, try new techniques and send out more roots, but don’t uproot and forget where you came from.