July 8, 2004
BY ERIC SHARP
FREE PRESS OUTDOORS WRITER
It was kind of ridiculous. Capt. Mike Pittiglio had been trolling on Lake St. Clair for about five hours, and so far had boated and released all six muskellunge that hit. But now people were looking for an excuse not to take the rod on a strike, because no one wanted to be the one to boot an angling no-hitter.
"Come on, somebody take the damned rod," Pittiglio said as another muskie whacked a 10-inch wooden plug that had caught so many fish there was almost no paint left on it. "Somebody has to do it."
By now it was fully dark, and the fish wrapped the line around another line that was still on the planer board. But the fishing gods were smiling, and a few minutes later the biggest fish of the trip was in the net and thrashing on the cockpit sole.
Long and lean, its grayish spots stood out against a silvery background in the harsh light of the spotlight held by angler Mike Zainea of St. Clair Shores while Muskie Mania continued to roll along on autopilot.
Pittiglio's scales weighed it at 25 pounds, most likely because a cold spring and early summer have produced unusually cool water temperatures that don't encourage these oversized pike to eat as much. He dumped the fish over the transom into the dark waters and it headed toward the Canadian shoreline.
A year ago, that muskellunge probably would have been as big as one of the half-dozen 30-pounders that Pittiglio had caught and released by this time on Lake St. Clair. Muskie Mania boated 646 fish in 2003, 25 of them more than 30 pounds.
"Compared to last year at this time, I'm down 50 fish and six 30-pounders. But last year was the greatest muskie season anyone can remember," Pittiglio said. "I think it's all about water temperature. It's only 63 degrees off the mouth of the marina in St. Clair Shores. It should be in the 70s by July."
That doesn't mean muskellunge fishing is bad on the world's greatest muskie lake, where charter captains still routinely boat more muskies in a week than anglers on most other lakes do in a season. Pittiglio still averages10-12 fish per trip and hopes to finish the season with a total of 600.
"We've had three days already where we had 19 or more," he said. "One problem this year has been the wind. We've had a bunch of days where the weather was so bad it just wasn't worth going out. To get the fish, we've mostly been running to the mouth of the Thames River in Canada. ... We've really been lighting them up off the Thames. The water is shallower over here, so the sun warms it up faster. And the Thames dumps a huge amount of warm water into the lake. Our best days were 19, 19 and 21 fish, and I figure that's why I'm out here."
Pittiglio runs a 31-foot Sea Ray that makes the 20-mile, cross-lake journey in about 45 minutes.
"I had one six-hour trip where we went 4-for-6" -- four fish landed out of six that were hooked -- "and on the way home I was really bummed because it was such a slow one," he said. "And then I started thinking, 'Man, are we spoiled. Four muskies, including a 20-pounder, and we're complaining.' "
While muskies are called "the fish of 1,000 casts" on smaller inland lakes where anglers mostly cast lures for them, the technique on Lake St. Clair is nearly always power trolling with big plugs that run 10-18 inches long. The more lures that are in the water the better, because it allows the anglers to offer a better selection of colors, shapes and lure action to these fish, which can be incredibly finicky and change their preferences from hour to hour.
For these reasons, muskie trolling is primarily a big-boat activity, and far from a cheap one. One this day Pittiglio had on board 10 tackle boxes containing more than 500 lures that average about $15 each.
"These are just some of the summer lures," he said. "I've got a lot more at home, and then when the fall comes, we have to change to bigger plugs with entirely different colors. You need to have a big variety of lures, because the fish take different ones in different parts of the lake."
Skippers who fish every day also are best at figuring out where the muskies are. When he first reached the Canadian side on this day, the surface waters were dirtier than Pittiglio liked. Then his propellers started churning up dirtier water from three feet below the surface, even though we were in 14 feet of water.
"No good," he said as he ran a couple of miles west. "We were here yesterday and it was really clear. But the wind has changed, and there may have been rain inland that brought runoff down the river." The next spot wasn't much better, and Pittiglio pulled lures quickly and headed farther west.
He believes in the solunar tables that predict the best and worst fishing and hunting periods, and on this day a major period was supposed to start at 5:30 p.m. Minutes after it was set, a rod got the first strike. And another angler reeled in a 14-pounder.
It was 5:27.
As Muskie Mania roared home Pittiglio said it has been a very good year for small muskies, fish in the 3- to 12-pound range. "There are a lot of them, and this year they are real fat," he said. "You love to see them, because that's our future. And if what we've seen so far is an indication, the future looks good."
Contact Pittiglio at 586-260-4068, or through his Web site at www.muskiemaniacharters.com.