I went out to Parvin Lake, which is part of Red feathers lakes, last weekend and really did not get up to much apart from see what it is like. This weekend I decided to go again and walk around the whole lake. I was mainly casting a brown or black heavily weighted rabbit. I got around half of the lake and had only hooked one trout which broke off before I could get the fight under control. However, the surprise of the day was yet to happen. As I was standing waist deep in water thinking about where the hell all the trout were I looked down to my right at a submerged tree and right next to it looked to be a something that had a very fishy shape. I was not really too sure what it was, but I noticed the back fin was waving so either it was a really big trout or a Tiger muskie. So I tossed out the streamer I had on and got the fly to go past the front of the fish, the fish moved its head to the left and gave away that it was a muskie. So I replaced the streamer I had on with a more heavily weighted black rabbit and one with the biggest hook I had, a size 6 (barbless). Now if I got this muskie on the line I was thinking that it was going to be a very short fight as I was using a 5 wt line and a 5lb leader, but it was worth ago. So I tossed out the fly and this time the muskie took the streamer and with a big jerk of the rod I had my first muskie on any kind of fishing gear. The first thing he did was go aerial and after one big splash I thought that was going to be it for my fly line. But I and it held out and it looked like he was trying to bury his nose in the lake bottom. As I moved in to make sure I was not snagged he took off again and with this jump the fly came right back at me and hit me in the body.
After that the fishing did not pick up for me, but people on float tubes started to arrive and catch trout out in the middle of the lake and that was kind of where I expected them to be. All in all it was a good day, but could have been amazing.
For those that have not see a tiger Muskie here is a photo of one from someones website, these guys are not small. Makes the pickerels that I was catching in PA look like babies.
