St. John River Van Buren, ME Fishing Report

The End Of The Muskie Curse

The Muskie has always been my favorite fish to fish for. But until recently, I had never actually caught one. I went back up to Stockholm, Maine with my grandfather and we met our guide and arranged to do some more fishing with him. I'm not gonna lie, I'm very superstitious when it comes to fishing. Since I've tried to catch a muskie four previous times since I was 14 with no luck, I thought I might have a "muskie curse" or something like that. My guide however told me that I just had to put in enough time, and if I went out multiple days I'd have a very good chance of getting one. Fast forward to our first trip, we were trolling big plugs that resembled perch, as well as a few jerkbaits designed to look like minnows. After about two hours, we'd actually had two strikes on the perch plugs, but the muskie dropped the plug each time. Fast forward another two hours, a rod with a blue/silver 6 inch rapala husky jerk got a strike. This time the muskie didn't let go and I set the hook. Surprisingly the muskie wasn't fighting all that much, just kind of slowly cruising back and forth. At one point I saw the muskie break the surface. In terms of inches, he looked about low mid thirties, though my guide insisted that he was bigger because he was staying down. Eventually I got him near the boat and he started to thrash, which was bad news because he was not anywhere near tried. My guide tried to get him with his muskie net, but the muskie swam under the net and snagged one of the hooks on the lure in the net. The muskie kept pulling until he jumped, shook his head and threw the hook. Goodbye! I was in disbelief and disgust and realized that my guide was right about the muskie being bigger than I originally thought. We estimated the muskie to be in the range of about 36-38 inches long and to weight about 14 or 15 pounds. We left the river shortly after that, and agreed to keep going out on the river until we caught a muskie. The next day, I met up with my guide and we went fishing on the river again. We ran the same lures and went to the same spot as the day before. We were only fishing for about 20 minutes before the same rod with the same lure that hooked the muskie the day before got bit again. As I got up to get the rod, I saw the muskie come barreling out of the water. It looked similar in size to the one I'd lost, but this time was different. This muskie was LIVID, he made many short, but fast jagged runs. And whenever I got him near the boat, he leaped from the water and dove down again, he jumped about 4 or 5 times in total. Eventually he started to get tired, but still had plenty of fight left in him. Every time my guide tried to net him, he'd dive down deep again, and then he started swimming in circles around the boat. After one last dive from the muskie, my guide walked up next to me and said "You know what? Bring him over here, I'm gonna get him for you." My guide then put the net in the water, I pulled the muskie over to him and he scooped the muskie up and lifted him into the boat. I finally had my muskie and I could not have been more excited. We took some pictures, as well as measured and weighed the muskie. The muskie measured 35 inches long and weighed 12 pounds. Not a monster, but a respectable fish nonetheless. Then about 30 minutes later, we got another bite on one of the perch plugs. This muskie was much larger, probably in the 40-42 inch range and about 20 pounds. But unfortunately, this muskie also got away at the boatside. I was disappointed and all, but I wasn't too bothered by it because I'd at least caught one muskie. After that, there was no more action for the day.

• Added By: newenglandangler on 07/31/17 10:33 AM
• Location: St. John River Van Buren, ME
• Report Date: 7/20/2017 - 7/21/2017
• # of Hotspots: 1
• # of Photos: 3
• # of Fish Caught: 1
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