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3. Welcome back, Lee

Lee

Make sure you add some wood duck to your muskie flies.

More than a few years back, I was in Presque Isle Bay during the first day of the late duck season. Somewhere around the first week of December.
Right before dawn, a flock of smallish birds swung around, and I thought they might be teal, which was strange since it was a normal weather fall season and all the teal had passed through over a month ago.
As the flock turned to land, I saw the crest of a drake woodie and pulled up on it. Even stranger that there would be woodies this late...
I hit it and as it was flopping around about 40 yards out, and Zena (my black lab) jumped out of my 17 foot Chesapeake on her way to fetch. A good sized muskie came up and hit the wounded woodie.
Well, Zena was dumbfounded (and always was kinda dumb) so she went ahead and got the bird anyway.
I never figured out why a full plumage wood duck would be in NW Pa in December, or why a muskie would try to eat her, and not hit my flies. And I never figured out why Zena leaped in front of the mail truck and got run over, either.

I still fish for muskies in Presque Isle bay, but haven't got any on a fly.
I wonder if maybe I should use wood duck feathers on my flies.
Or maybe even just double haul a wood duck?

Did you ever get another Lab?

No, Matt. Sadly she was my last pet.
After my beagle (Apache Sue) passed to the happy hunting grounds, and I became more of a snobby upland bird hunter, I raised and trained Sugar, a pointer, who was bred in Bellefonte, the offspring of great and renowned hunting dogs. She had an incredible nose and learned to hunt close for grouse and for heavy cover quail. She was also great at sniffing out groundhogs...
Once all of the quail and pheasants (plus most of the grouse) disappeared from my neck of the woods, I let my mom have her, which was for the best, as I was working more than a hundred hours a week back then. Mom made her look like a cannoli and then she became addicted to spaghetti sauce and actually began to dig up and eat all of the parsley plants in Mom's garden. Unfortunately, she died young.
Zena was my last pup...

With your lovely brood of youngsters a Lab might be a great addition to the family.

I have a dog that I am willing to part with. Excellent nose, wonderful retriever, hunts close, only hunted on wild birds. I really liked her until this morning at 5:00 am. I think this picture will explain:

Hi Tony.. A muskie took a shot at a full grown wood duck? That must have been something to see.

Once, we were up on Cabonga Reservoir in La Verendrye PP in Quebec spending a week trolling for walleye and got to talking to a guy at the camping area who claimed he saw a pike suck down a toy poodle that was prancing around on one of the boat docks and slipped off the edge and into the lake. But he was pretty ethanolized most of the time, so we took it with a grain of salt.

Its been over 30 years since I did any duck hunting, but we used to float French Creek around Thanksgiving every year and jump shoot Blacks and Mallards and quite a few Woodies too. Certainly not as many as you'd see during the early part of the season, but still a pretty fair number. We even jumped a pair of Gadwalls once. The only ones I've ever seen.

I had a 9 wgt. Browning Boron fly rod once that probably could have double hauled a wood duck. And the aluminum tube nest it was hatched in too at the same time, for that matter. Thing was a real club. I gave it to one of the kids in the neighborhood where I lived at the time. I think he and his friends ended up using it as a javelin. Wasn't much good for fishing, that's for sure.

I ran out of wood duck flank feathers last year. But I have a quart-size zip loc of Hooded Merganser flank, which is pretty close, just a little darker.

I plan on targeting pike in the Bay when they move in to spawn this Spring (if Spring ever comes..). I'll probably do most of my Muskie fishing at LeBoeuf, which I grew up fishing and know like the back of my hand or Edinboro, which I can walk to from my house in under 15 minutes. They say Sugar Lake and Canadohta are both pretty good too. I'm a small water guy. Small trout streams and small lakes.

Right now, I'm taking a forced break from tying my big fish flies. I have one of those Regal knock-off vises (Crown, I think they are by brand) that I use for big stuff and I was trying to get the jaws to open wide enough to accommodate one of these 5/0 hooks I got from Hook&Hackle. Its right out there at the upper end of the vise's working range and I was really squeezing the lever to get that last 1/16th of an inch and I did something to my wrist. Hurts like H... So, now I'm sitting here with an ice pack inside an Ace bandage all wrapped around it.

That'll teach me.. Shoulda just got some baling wire, some super glue, a crate full of wood ducks and some 10/0 hooks and see if can find another one of those Brownings on Ebay.....

Say it isn't so Eric!? You have had one rough year and we are only three months into it! You are going to slay them this year on the river...Someone owes you, bro!

Spence

Oh...Welcome back Lee. :)

Eric: BUMMER!!! I hope you get that stench our eventually...

Jonathon

I almost missed this Tony...That's a funny story!

Spence