It was the middle of December, and although the possibility of the lake being frozen over  was on both our minds, it was not discussed openly during the long drive to the lake. The days were getting shorter and the shadows longer and we both silently knew that it would be one of the last days of the year to catch a musky, and that we would have to wait another six months before the new season opened next summer.  As we approached our usual put-in spot we realized that we were already too late, and that a thin layer of ice had already formed on the lake’s surface, stretching out for miles in all directions.  Our hearts sank in unison and we both muttered a few imprecatory words before resigning ourselves to the vagaries of winter fishing. It was always risky at this time of year and we were never certain of the success or failure of these winter musky expeditions.  This is always hard fishing, the weather is cold and unforgivable, equipment seizes up and becomes prone to failure, the body stiffens and becomes brittle, refusing to move, and the mind plays games on itself. It is not for the faint of heart, only for those whose desire to catch a fish is is matched only by their willingness and ability to suffer.  These are not days for your normal fisherman.

We slowly drove down the lakeshore road, searching for any open water that we could find, but to no avail.  At one point, probably because the temperature had climbed a degree or two since the early morning, we found a small bay that still had open water, not much, but enough to put the Zodiac in and satisfy our desire to fish. We had caught fish here before, in summer,  but it had now been reduced to but a few square acres of open water extending out near a deep weedline.  Slowly, we donned our floater suits, hats, gloves, boots, and pumped up the boat. My companion studied  his camera and realized that the shutter was unresponsive in the cold, nor would the flash keep a charge. A photo session would not be part of the equation today. Another setback before the day even began.

We loaded all our gear in the inflatable and slid it like a toboggan down the snow covered hill to the water’s edge. Ice had already formed against the rocks on the shoreline and glittered like diamonds in the morning sun. The water was flat and calm, gunmetal blue, the color of cold steel.  It looked promising and we pushed off confident that we would see some, albeit limited, action.

Within seconds we rigged up our quick-strike rigs with the largest minnows in the bucket and let the lines trail off behind us on both sides of the boat.  We ran one line about fifteen feet back, drifting the minnow in the propwash while another ran sixty or so feet off the port side,  right about where the weed line ends and the drop-off begins. Once settled in, we poured hot coffee into ourselves to stay warm and ate peanut butter sandwiches, checking our free-spools every so often to assure that they had not frozen up, as well.

An hour or so after we put in, we had covered all the open water available and were making a last weedline pass when my friend’s clicker suddenly began to sound like a race car engine. Fish on! The hook was set and the fish began moving off under the ice.  The fight was sluggish and although the rod was bent to the handle, the fish was a thumper and not a runner,  strong but easily manageable. The water was way too cold for running and jumping. The battle would be fought at close quarters, under and around the boat, for several minutes. When we first caught a glimpse of the fish it was a large female, mint colored, and fat with weeks of heavy Fall feeding on protein-rich mooneyes. It came to the boat twice before we were able to hand land it without any struggle on her behalf. For a few seconds, we admired her awesome beauty and marvelled at its hybrid markings. It was a tiger musky, with beautifully patterned stripes of green and ivory that so perfectly mimicked the undulating weedbeds where they live and ambush prey. As we slipped the circle hook out of her mouth and held her in the water, we looked around us and noticed that the ice had starting forming in the bay and that our access to shoreline was now blocked by a translucent sheet of bluish ice.  We watched as the fish slowly swam away into the dark and frigid depths. Without a word we both knew it was now the time to leave this place and as the inflatable cut a path through the thin veneer of ice towards the shoreline, we both silently acknowledged that this was our last musky of the year. - ARI VINEBERG