The Muskie Hook Re-Cast

The muskellunge is known as literally “the fish of 10,000 casts”. People responding to surveys have reported spending well over 150 hours for one contact. At times a muskie, that could be a husky four-feet long or more, will follow a bait to the boat, just below the surface like an incoming torpedo, then will pause, seeming to make eye-contact, before waving good-by with its forked tail fins. When one is hooked it can explode heavily into the air. Going out for muskie is as often referred to as ‘hunting’ as distinct from ‘fishing’. A national magazine, two national organizations, and several websites are devoted to the challenge.
In this story three men nearing the end of a week of luckless long days reluctantly agree, on their last day, to be guided by the teenage son of their host guide who has been taken ill after a day in the rain. The son, a month short of being 18, is taking on his first solo guiding at sufferance. He’s long been embarrassed by his father’s business of taking the money of people willing to pay for such seldom results, and is anxious to reach 18 to qualify for joining a friend in the more productive work of logging. Yet he very much wants to perform well, and even better, to be able to ring the old school bell that is sounded to celebrate whenever a muskie is brought in, so that he can resign from the family business having proved himself at it.
The men are friends, though like the son, they each react differently among themselves to the different events they initiate or encounter, and in the end are caught up in a deadly situation drawn from a real experience I once had on a lake in the northern timber country.
Part of the story is told from the point of view of a large post-spawning female muskie that they manage to get into their boat.