The Kahuna Cup

The first Saturday of musky season is a special day for so many reasons. This year it was extra special as I had the opportunity to fish the now famous Muskies Canada Ottawa Chapter event know as the Kahuna Cup with David Mingie, head of the Ottawa Walleye Region League (www.orwl.ca), and good friend and amazing guy Lawrence Gunther (www.blindfishingboat.com).

It took only an hour of casting to get lucky on this opener. After a discussion on the absurdity of catching muskies on figure 8s right at your feet it was wonderful to hear David grunt from the back of the boat as a strong male musky showed up seemingly out of no where in the dirty water to crush the new PDeez Johnny A inline. It was David’s first boat side strike and his biggest musky to date. You can see David holding the bait and what the fish did to it. This is a good problem to have when you are musky fishing and the nice thing about being in Ottawa and close to Paul is that he provides a re-build service for PDeez customers. I use it A LOT!

The highlight of my day personally was watching Lawrence catch a musky casting on a jerk bait. Catching a musky casting is hard enough for most people but imagine how hard it would be if you were blind. I was watching Lawrence cast (which I highly recommend you do all the time when you have a sight challenged individual swinging at 9 1/2 foot Shimano Compre with a lethal weapon tied to the end in your boat) his Sledge when the water exploded. Lawrence reacted like lightning with a vicious hook set and was cranking that fish in fast before anyone could get a word out. Check out how badly Lawrences musky wanted that bait in the pic. Knipex cutters are essential release tools for that exact reason. Our little monster swam away just fine.

Thanks to Peter Levick and all the volunteers who made the Kahuna Cup a big smile affair as always. There were 50 of us out for the day including guests from our New Brunswick Chapter and a couple of regular guests from Edmonton. More on the westerners and Paul’s awesome catch on Sunday in the next post.

Only one suggestion Peter; the bbq was great but please let Bob Syrenne do up his magical pulled pork from the green egg. Can’t wait for the Elvis Open in September Bob!.

Can someone update this post with the winning fish from the Kahuna Cup please. It usually takes a 50+ inch musky to win an outing on the Ottawa. Trophy country baby!