By Tom Cross-
I hadn’t caught a muskie all year, well maybe two years, and I was itching to get back down there, but my job kept me tied up from late September through mid-October when the muskies are biting best at Cave Run Lake in Kentucky. Only a couple of hours south near Morehead nestled in the mountains of Daniel Boone National Forest, Cave Run is a beautiful lake of 8,270 acres. The lake is the result of impounding the Licking River during the early 70’s.
The upper Licking, prior to the lake, was a natural muskie stream and old timers often recalled the good old days of floating the stream and catching muskies. A hatchery was built below the dam that today supplies all the muskies for Cave Run, Green River, and Buckhorn Lake and a few Kentucky streams. The state record muskie of 47-pounds was caught from Cave Run in early November of 2008.
After the last festivities wrapped up in Adams County I took a look at the calendar and a hard look at the weather reports and said to my wife, “I need to go this weekend.”
The days were nice but the nights were predicted cold and since I would be sleeping in the back of my pickup I didn’t want to wait for any colder weather to arrive. This would be my last fishing trip of the year so I needed to do it now.
It was windy but sunny when I arrived at Warix boat ramp that Thursday afternoon. A couple of other anglers were waiting the wind out and we talked fishing. Around 3 or 4 p.m. the wind died down and I launched my boat and headed for a narrow deep cove that was close by and sheltered. A lot of fallen trees, a beaver lodge, and a big weed bed had made this cove a favorite of mine over the years. I tied on a new spinner I just purchased and threw it a few times toward the beaver lodge and on about my fourth or fifth cast a muskie of about 30-32 inches grabbed it. “Ha! My first muskie of the year I thought.” After I got it to the boat I unhooked it and let it swim away. I never saw another fish the rest of the evening.
It was a cold night to be sleeping in the back of a pickup but I survived and come morning I took out the camp stove, made coffee and a bowl of instant oatmeal, and chased it down with a few swallows of orange juice and was ready to go.
I headed for my number one spot at Big Cave cove and fished there nearly four hours without seeing a single fish. Then I moved across to Donovan Creek and then into Little Cave, and still nothing. It’s about that time of day when out of desperation I pull out a big swim wiz and a gold Bagley shad and start trolling. Around 3 o’clock I passed over an underwater hump in Caney Creek and the reel clicker went off and I was into my second muskie of the trip. Another 30 inches that I was glad I caught but was also released after I unhooked him. After that I pulled up to the shoreline and made a ham sandwich and drank some tea. I spotted a big flat rock on the bank and thought it would make a good step for the garage and after I ate lunch I hoisted the big rock aboard the boat and continued fishing until dark. I never sighted or hooked another fish.
Once back at the ramp I set the heavy rock behind the driver’s seat and fixed a bowl of chili. It was another cold night in the back of a pickup but as I told my wife Judy, “I’ve slept on snow before so this will be a cake walk.” I was up early, made coffee and oatmeal, then loaded the cooler in the boat and headed for Buck Creek.
On day three that Saturday a Muskie Hunter Tournament was going on with a top prize of $3,500. My tournament days are behind me but over 30 boats were on the water that day competing, half of which were fishing on Zilpo Flats. I talked to several muskie fishermen and nobody was seeing any fish, including me. After a morning of zero activity at Buck Creek, I headed to Zilpo and started trolling. A muskie is considered the fish of a thousand casts and I was just about there.
After a couple of passes around Zilpo Flats thoughts about returning home and calling it a season were beginning to creep in. I was weary and fishless and started trolling toward Warix Run boat ramp. I made a pass through the hollow where I caught my first muskie and then made a loop around Ramey Creek and paused long enough to chat with some fisherman who had caught a small muskie earlier.
After a brief conversation I headed to Warix, watching the depth on my Hummingbird depth finder. When it got too shallow to troll, I reeled in both trolling rods and took off the lures and put the rods in the rod locker. I put the lures up as well but still had two casting rods left out. Both had big spinners tied on and I switched on the electric motor and started casting to the small pockets between the weed beds on my way to the dock which was within sight. It was about 2:30 that afternoon and decided to call it a day and head to the ramp to load the boat. I removed the big orange spinner from one rod and stowed it in the locker. I was about to do the same with my only remaining rod still out but happened to glance over to the boat ramp and saw half-a-dozen boats ready to load so decided to fish a few minutes longer or at least wait until the boat traffic cleared. It was literally the last cast of the day before heading home.
I had a big chartreuse bucktail spinner with a curly grub tied to the other rod and just made a couple of casts when something big grabbed the lure. It was a solid hit. At first I thought ‘big catfish’, but soon caught sight of the fish in the clear Cave Run waters.
It was a huge muskie, thick and with a massive head, the chartreuse spinner plainly visible hooked in the maw of that monster fish. I could see it shake its head in the clear water under the boat, trying to rid itself of the lure. I loosened the drag and let the fish run at will as there was no stopping the big muskie. Luckily there were no underwater snags or trees he could have hung up or went into and in hindsight stowing the rods was a lucky move because I was all over the boat fighting that fish from side to side. Other boats begin to take notice and started watching the action.
The big brute made a straightaway run and jumped, clearing the water and shaking its huge head, trying to dislodge the lure. But the hook held and I was still hanging on, gaining little ground when a shout from a nearby boat offering help.
The muskie dove deep and out of sight but came up on the other side of the boat. It was then I reached down with one hand and pulled the rope to lift my trolling motor out of the water. By then the two other fishermen arrived with a big net and offered to net it. I tried to lead the big muskie to their net but both times the muskie dodged the net and dove under their boat. That’s a very dangerous time to lose a fish. Many big muskies have been lost at the net due to the net hooking the lure and not the muskie. It was about that time I decided it was my turn to try to net the fish. If it was going to be netted I was going to have to do it myself or lose it trying.
With my right hand holding the butt of the rod firmly against my waist and my thumb locked on the spool of the reel, my left hand had a vice-like grip on the net handle as I lowered the big net into the water and tried to lead the muskie to the net. But instead of going head first into the net the muskie turned away and straddled the net and the lure fell out of its mouth and into the net. I immediately tried lifting the handle but could not lift the heavy fish into the net, that instant I dropped the rod and the net handle and reached overtop the muskie and with both hands grabbed the front hoop of the net and dragged net and muskie over the gunnel of the boat and on to the carpeted floor.
I was pretty much shaking and unnerved at that point over what just transpired. The two other fishermen, both from West Virginia, were fishing the muskie tournament and had an official measuring board called a bump board and once the fish settled down they handed me the board and we laid the big muskie on it. It took all three of us to hold and measure the huge fish as I was still shaking. It measured just a quarter inch shy of 52 inches. I posed for a dozen pictures but could barely lift the heavy muskie and had to rest the fish on my knee. By that time several other boats had gathered around and were also snapping pictures and video of the monster muskie. After a handful of pictures I lowered the huge fish into the water where we measured its girth at over 22 inches and I held on to its tail for a while keeping the big muskie upright until it was strong enough to swim away and let it go, back to its deep lair in the waters of Cave Run.
Afterwards I texted a few friends of mine and my family with pics of the muskie, but news about a big muskie caught at Cave Run traveled fast. It was far bigger than anything turned in at muskie tournament that day. One of the fishermen in the tournament said that was a $3,500 fish, “You would have won!”
An old Kentucky friend of mine Bill Burns, who makes muskie baits for Cave Run, said he had been fishing for that same muskie all summer long and several other fishermen knew of the giant fish that inhabited the weed beds at Warix Run. He said the fish had been hooked a couple of times only to get away. Bill estimated the muskie weighed between 30-35 pounds and as far as he knew it is the biggest muskie to come out of Cave Run Lake so far this year. Bill called it “A true Cave Run giant! And yes the fish of a lifetime!”
My wife asked if I was going to mount it or have a replica made.
I said, “No, it’s going to be remembered in photos only and as fish story of the one that didn’t get away”.
