We leave our family for 9 days for 10,000 casts toward a Muskie.
 
Muskellunge (Esox masquinongy) from the Ojibwa word maashkinoozhe, meaning “ugly pike”. Muskie like to cruse “patrols” looking to destroy whatever critter they choose. This is no ordinary fish. They are the apex predator in any water they live. Eating anything they can possibly fit in their toothy mouth. This is not a fish for the light of heart, mind, or body…
 
North of Hwy 8 live the Maashkinoozhe. Tea colored rivers from the rust belt harbor the elusive fish.  We cast flies that are larger than some house pets to a fish meaner than a doberman pincer on Starbucks. We arrive at camp around 1am, since we had to catch the evening rise on the Driftless, we drive by night. We set camp, charge camera batteries, and rig our titanium bite leaders. 
 
Sunrise and we rise, off to the musky river where hopefully the guy remembered to drop a johnboat off for us. Sure enough it was there. Now, nobody in the boat had ever casted for muskie before this, but it was easy to see why the fish loved this water. Slow pools with submerged vegitation haunted us as we casted furiously. We floated by submerged logs and gawked down into the amber water in hopes to see one. The river was very similar to home. Steep rocky riffles gently sweeping around the corner into deep slow glassy pools, we had confidence in this type water. Reading seams, drop-offs, shadows, submerged vegie, and woody debris there were fishing places everywhere! Yet….where were the muskie?
Two days straight of casting 10wts and flies the size of a muskrat and no toothy critters.
But…we did catch a few smallmouth bass that could have passed as bait in these waters. Powerfull dark and deep were the smallmouth bass here. We could catch smallmouth in the Ozarks so we quickly threw them back and kept casting, and casting, and casting…..all the way to Lake Vermillion.

 See more pictures and Video at www.FlyFishingtheOzarks.com