Our 2006 Merwin Lake Fall Musky Camp ended yesterday. The last fish in my boat was caught by Tony Welch on Sunday, Oct. 8, but Merwin's tiger muskies are still marginally fishable. Mike and I had good follows from aggressive fish on the last two days. At this point, I recommend using crankbaits that run fairly deep and working them slowly, taking time to cover flats about 20 to 25 feet deep, from Woodland Park to Cresap Bay. I did not find any fish in the lower third of the lake, at the dam end. Our three-person party's statistics for this fall are: 378 hours spent on the water, 16 tiger muskies hooked, and 10 of these were successfully boated and carefully released, including a 21-inch juvenile we caught twice on two consecutive days. The fishing was challenging this fall, but as you can see, it wasn't a waste of time and effort. Also remember, even on the tough days when you're not raising fish, you have interesting experiences on the water. For example, one day we watched a speedboat roar into an area where there was a lot of floating logs and debris, then it suddenly stopped and a couple seconds later a loud "thunk" carried across the water. It apparently didn't wreck his lower unit, because a minute later he was back up on plane -- then abruptly stopped again, and we heard another loud "thunk." He must have borrowed the boat from a friend, because I can't imagine anyone treating his own property that way. Another guy had a speaker system on his ski boat so loud I could make out the lyrics to the hip-hop noise he was playing from 6 miles away; I was impressed by how much money he must have spent on that technology. A few days ago, a musky posed next to a stump with I took half a photos of him, using flash; needless to say, I couldn't catch him. Like I said, there's always interesting things to see and do when musky fishing, even on the slow days. Maybe I should sit down and write an article for Washingtonlakes.com on tiger musky tactics one of these days. Until then, I'm signing off until next season. Tight lines, all.

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