OK, this was a trip I jumped at when I found out it was being offered at our annual "Fish Camp" put on by Ed Iman. I have never fished Merwin Reservoir before but like many of you I have seen the pictures of huge tiger muskies. So when it was announced that this was an available trip I jumped on it and Aaron was in as well.

It's a 2 1/2 hour drive from Maryhill to Merwin, and our guide for the day was Mike Gibney. Mike is an Oregon tournament bass angler and he has fished Merwin before. In addition we had a second boat being guided by Chapter 57's own Ed Walzer, a guy that knows Merwin about as well as anyone around. Ed was taking out two anglers from Fish Camp, Joe Cermele of Field and Stream, and Chuck Smock of Cabela's. We left camp at 3:30am and arrived primed for a great fishing adventure with the fog just beginning to clear off the lake.

Ed's boat were going for the ultimate, a tiger on the fly, while we went the traditional route, throwing Reaction Strike swim baits. We started up at the dam and slowly worked our way down the shoreline, casting to every bit of wooded structure we could see. The Reaction Strike lures were great - very life-like and excellent action – and huge! I am not used to throwing larger lures, but the lamiglas rods we were using were up to the task. In no time at all we began to see our first muskies as they ascended from under the structure and followed our lures back to the boat. And that, unfortunately, was all they were in the mood to do. We pounded the water the whole day and caught up with the other group who had similar disappointments. They say muskies are the fish of a thousand casts. I guess we were just a few casts shy.

On a side note, we also product tested a new outdoor soap specifically designed to remove human scent called Fishermans Eco-Soap. I really liked the product for cleaning my hands. It is a lot nicer than the standard anti-bacterial hand soaps and leaves no smell on your hands. The manufacturer even says you can use it on your lure to remove human scent. Totally bio-degradable and enviromentally safe. Check out their web site...

We did get some amazing video of the muskies, so I’ll be posting a muskie video in the near future.

Special thanks to Mike Gibney for working so hard to try to get us that special fish. Merwin reservoir is a beautiful place to fish. I’ll definitely be back!

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