The Fish of 600 Casts

Fly-fishing for musky

When my friend Chris Schrantz and I went to northern Wisconsin in late spring to fly-fish some rivers for smallmouth bass, we were told that there could be muskies in the mix, but we honestly didn't think we'd see one. After all, Chris and I both grew up in the north country--just across the border in Minnesota--so we knew the mythology: Muskies can grow to enormous size, but they were said to be all but impossible to catch. They were called "the fish of a thousand casts," and that was putting it mildly, since there were true stories of musky fishermen having fishless weeks, months and even whole seasons. Read more – offline – from the current issue; subscribe to FRR.