Brian, I heard that story when it was still fresh in your mind a few years back, and its still a great story! When we showed up that day on Watts you were still pretty excited, that was cool.
That's how Watts was too, very short feeding window, but when it opened you better be ready.
I spent a lot of time on muskie water in MN in my early years, so there were lots of brushes with them in my youth. Played tug-o-war with quite a few muskies while crappie fishing on Cass. Probably one of the most memorable experiences was one afternoon when we motored over to Star island to portage into lake Windigo to fish for bass and pike. We found a dead 'ski floating in the reeds on the shore, and it wasn't immediately apparent what killed it, either old age or poor handling after a catch, but to my 12 or 13 year-old eyes that muskie might as well have been a beached whale. We didn't have anything long enough to measure it with, but my dad laid the ememergency oar from the boat next to it and the fish dwarfed the oar, which was probably only about a 36" or 42" paddle. I have a picture of it floating next to the oar somewhere, I should dig it out one of these days. It would be cool to compare that fish to the 53 5/8" fish we boated in the 2000 tourney.
I could go on for a while with muskie memories, like why not to slap yourself in the side of the head if a gnat flies in your ear while standing in the bow of a flatbottom boat, or the importance of removing hooks before doctoring a Suick, but we'll save those for another thread.
Jamie