Several people have called into question my dedication in recent years to muskie fishing. My wife asks how I can possibly go and fish all day and only catch a few fish when I could be catching easy limits of walleye. ( I think she really misses those walleye dinners.)

The guys I take smallmouth bass fishing know that a run-of-the-mill day is twenty five bass that would average two and a half pounds, and with their aerial acrobatics and endurance they are truly high on my list of favorites. We rarely catch a smallie under two pounds. The Detroit river has a truly remarkable population of these great game fish. I lovingly refer to them as little gladiators.

My daughter shares my love for enticing fish with artificial lures. When rock bass and smallmouth bass are both spawning, it is not unusual to catch seventy five to one hundred fish on small crank baits in an easy day of fishing.

Despite how great that fishing is I will still fish muskie at every opportunity. Never would have thought it would have happened to me, muskie fever they call it. I know how it happened, but that's another story entirely.

In the last two seasons I have managed to convert a couple of smallmouth fishermen to my way of thinking, or really to be more accurate, the muskie themselves won them over. In order to accomplish that though, I had to manage to get them to spend time trolling.

My daughter was first. Angie and I had planned on fishing the flats for smallmouth bass one early June morning. We had fished the skinny water for just a few minutes before mother nature in the form of a cold, strong north west wind convinced us to seek more sheltered water. Winter coats don't make for comfortable casting. Now it just so happens that my favorite muskie spots are sheltered from anything other than a due north or south wind. The choice was obvious. Despite a little grumbling from the front of the boat, I set the rods up and began working the water adjacent to some previously productive weed beds. I do know several other spots that would have been sheltered for bass fishing, but I was sure that once she felt the primordial strength of a muskie on the other end of her line she would be won over.

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