“Wisconsin Fishing for Muskies, Smallmouths, Trout and Crappie with Ed Spoerl”

Part 2: For a Vet, Life Doesn’t Get Any Better

Editor’s Note: Ed Spoerl from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, fishes three tournaments a year, including the Wisconsin Muskie Tour and a tour hosted by a local muskie bait shop in Manitowoc, Wis. Although he’s a tournament muskie fisherman, he’s not one dimensional. He fishes for walleyes, smallmouths, panfish and trout. Though Spoerl doesn’t work as a guide, he enjoys guiding his friends and often donates guided trips for worthwhile causes.

Question: Where else do you fish for muskies?

Spoerl: I fish Lake of the Woods in Canada quite a bit. And this year, I was a guide for Operation Muskie, which was really a worthwhile program.

Question: What is Operation Muskie?

Spoerl: Last year, a resort in Minnesota located right on the Canada/Minnesota border hosted Operation Muskie and offered a free week of lodging to military veterans who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan. A group of top muskie guides took the vets muskie fishing, free of charge. The vets didn’t have to pay for anything. Operation Muskie was fully funded by individuals, lure companies and the resort. For me, it was a very-incredible experience. Guides like Pete Mainia, Doug Johnson, Dick Pearson and some of the other big names in muskie fishing graciously offered their time to show their appreciation for the men and women who served our country in military actions.

We guided the veterans for 3-1/2-days and found incredible muskie fishing. We were catching muskie on Musky Marabous and Magnum Musky Killers. We were primarily fishing around shallow structure. Muskie hold in quite shallow water on Lake of the Woods. The little shelves off the island clusters, shallow shore lines, cabbage-weed edges, as well as the reefs out in the middle of the lake all held muskies.

We also found muskies in boulder fields and around bulrush points. There was a wide variety of structure around which we had to fish. The most-productive color I found in the Musky Marabou was the white blade with the black-and-white tail. Then, for the Giant Killer, the chartreuse blade and tail combination as well as the silver blade and black tail combination proved to be very effective.

Question: How were you catching your muskies?

Spoerl: Because most of the fish that we caught were in 1 or 2 feet of water, we would fish close to shore and try to make really accurate casts to the structure, as well as to the pockets and weeds. We’d use a fast retrieve to get the muskies to attack instinctively. We tried to keep the lures no more than 1- to 2-feet below the surface of the water.

Question: In two to three days of fishing, how many muskies did you catch?

Spoerl: In my boat alone, we brought 11 muskies to the boat. Our biggest fish was 48 inches, and we had several in the mid- to upper-40s range.

Question: What did the veterans think of fishing with you guys on the Lake of the Woods?

Spoerl: They were really excited and appreciative. I don’t know who had the most fun – the guides or the veterans we were hosting. This was a great trip for all of us, and we plan to do it again this year. We hope to make it a yearly event to let those military folks know how much they mean to us and to our country. This event is scheduled for the first of July. This year all of the guides that were there last year will be back, and we’ll have a new group of veterans.

To fish with Ed Spoerl, email fightingbsox@yahoo.com, or call at 715-340-9101.