How To Put Time On Your Side

Any legitimate aging angler re-members the 1964 blockbuster hit from the Rolling Stones, “Time Is On My Side.”

- Marty Forman

And, I sure agree with Mick Jagger’s next line, “Yes it is!” Having all the extra cash you dreamed of for retirement may or may not be the case. But, you should, at least, have plenty of time.

You no longer have to go to work, raise the kids or, hopefully, worry too much about anything other than putting muskies in your net. Naturally, the limitations of age, maybe a few aches and pains, and fatigue still apply. Our previous installments (and more to come) identifying equipment and techniques to combat this are still very much in play. However, time (when used wisely) is perhaps the advantage that can trump all the other cards in the deck.

The concept of taking advantage of added time became clear during my favorite event, the Spring Classic of Champions musky tournament. This major fundraiser for the Headwaters Chapter of Muskies Inc. was an early sell-out this year with a full field of 150 teams (300 anglers) on the Eagle River Chain in June. My least favorite part of the event is a loooong 10 hours on Saturday with a short Sunday. On this particular Saturday, those 300 anglers, including many of the world’s best, caught just 12 fish in those 10 hours.

For the statisticians among you, that’s 3,000 angler hours divided by 12 fish, or 250 hours of fishing per musky. Put another way, you would need to fish more than six whole work weeks to catch one lousy fish in those conditions. The funny thing about this is: here I was licking my wounds that day, when only a week earlier, I had caught four muskies, lost one, and raised three others in three total hours