The Hunt For Goliath!
You’re Always Only A Cast Away From Victory
I’ve been fortunate to hook up with a number of big muskies over the course of my career, but none are more memorable than the lunker my friend Chas Martin nicknamed Goliath. Everything about this musky measures up BIG! It had length, girth, weight, power and attitude. A magnificent musky by all standards. On top of that , the battle was simply epic. Literally, a dream come true. Everything about Goliath ranks in the Top 10 of my greatest musky catches.
As the story begins, I must come clean that I did not expect a musky of this magnitude to ever hang out in the habitat we were exploring. No way. The spot was actually nothing more than a small cove. A tiny one, in fact, cut out of a large island complex. Additionally , none of my past experiences suggested small coves, little cuts and tiny bays could ever hold a real big fish. Generally, little cuts produce pike (northern pike), bass and an occasional small to medium sized muskie. Usually, there’s something in a tiny bay that’ll bend the rod, but not scream the drag. Well, how wrong I turned out to be.
From an angling approach, I nearly always approach small cuts cautiously with very little on/off trolling motor noise preferring instead to bomb extra long casts at them while keeping my boat outside the target zone as much as possible. I also tend to make casts at various angles in the confined area by starting off to one side of the cove, and then eventually shifting hard to the opposite side to fire casts at exaggerated angles back over the same water. As it turns out, this ended up being the key to triggering Goliath to strike.
A little over 10 to 12 minutes into the casting process Chas and I had already worked thru the entire cove with no response. Even though conditions seemed absolutely perfect, there was no sign of musky presence at all. This is where the story gets very interesting, and might provide one of the best lessons on reverse angle casting. Instead of simply continuing our motion out of the cove, and on to another spot, I abruptly turned the bow hard to the port side so we could rifle a few more casts back across the cove from the complete opposite direction. The very 1st cast I launched in this reverse angle fashion turned out to be THE one.
I always begin my retrieve with an in-line spinner utilizing an aggressive burn bursting it quickly forward and upward creating a bulge. About 8 to 10 turns into the retrieve I then backed off the burst a tad and actually let the lure descend a bit. I was only about half way thru this when my rod abruptly doubled and I instinctively reared back in a power hook set. Chas Martin immediately exclaimed “Oh my gosh dude! Wow!” An epic battle ensued accentuated by astounding power runs that made the reel’s drag scream. Looking back, this was truly one of the most powerful muskies I had ever locked up with. Thankfully, it was well hooked, and eventually it was successfully landed.
Honestly, both of us were abruptly stunned by all the immediate visual dimensions on this musky particularly as it relates to comparable ones in the mid summer period. Summertime muskies simply don’t look like this one did. Not only was this fish long, but it had a giant oversized head and was extra thick across the back proportionally from head to tail. In fact the oversized head is where Chas quickly came up with the nickname Goliath referring to the biblical giant and his oversized head and giant frame. It also had fabulous girth proportions throughout the entire body and was literally thick from head to tail. Finally, Goliath was simply a perfectly marked super healthy trophy musky without a single blemish. I sincerely believe it had never been caught before. It had no hook scars anywhere. But now, thanks to one single cast from a reverse angle, it has at least one!
Joe Bucher
