MINNEAPOLIS FISHING BANDITOS
ARTICLES AND RESEARCH
Bandito Battles Lunker WindSurfer and Wins! (July 2003)
Bandito Battles Lunker WindSurfer and wins!
Arguably the most amazing freshwater fishing battles I have ever seen! We were out for a quick
evening bite. The strong wind made it difficult for us to navigate our canoe. I was dragging a
nice fat suckerminnow 5 feet behind the canoe. I had a custom 4ft steel leader with a razor sharp
large tuna fishing cirle hook. The waves and wind had me thinking twice about our safty
when I noticed a surfer approaching fast. He was approaching directly on a collision corse
that would either hit us, or run over my bait. instantly I plunged my favorite $500 musky rod
as deep as I could to get the line down. the surfer passed behind us just cliping my line by
the bobber....the fight was on! I yelled out" hey dude you got me!" he was already too fast and
far away to hear. as line peeled off my abu garcia 7000 , I tighted it to the max. this didnt
slow him down at all. with hundreds of yards already out, and probably less left, I had to act
fast. our canoe was already being dragged sideways! on this one occassion I had forgotten the
most important safty feature in hardcore heavy weight freshwater fishing, my knife( as if I
could cut 90lb test braid anyway). my rod couldnt take the excessive force, so I was pointing
it towards the surfer, puting all the weight on the line and reel(im surprised the rod butt
didnt break!). I was also using my thumb to slow the spool, and with my free hand was griping
the line.holding it as tight as I could, with no effect of slowing, IT BURNS!!!AH! I had to
let go of the line, looking down I was amazed to see steam coming off my fingers! just then a
splicing knot( used to splice to spools together, and tests close to 95% of the line test)
just clears my last eye of the rod and unties in mid air! SNAP! line goes flying. I look over
to see the surfer fall over. It looked like all the extra force I was applying to his stabilizing
fin had caused him to shift his weight slightly, when the line snaped, he fliped. I was relieved
to has saved my rod, but horified when I realized that that guy, swiming in my line, could be in
trouble. we quickly paddled over to find line wraped all over him and his gear. we helped him.
aparently he had attempted to yeild to us, but came too close(5ft is way too close by law at
least 100ft are required). he also didnt realize that he had us until the line snapped at him.
after all was said and done, his stabilizing fin was damaged and unable to run straight. My rod,
line and Bait was undamaged! I'm sure he will think twice about coming close to musky fishing
people. And as for me, i think ill have to get a new rod with 200lb test line just for this lake.
