First Step

Like many first-time attendees, he sat in the back for several nights, drinking coffee and working up the nerve. I noticed him, but I’ve seen plenty of his type come and go. Some have hit rock bottom and are ready to deal with their problem. Others know the truth but aren’t ready to accept their dependency until it destroys everything they once held dear. When you’ve been to as many meetings as I have, you learn not to get attached to the dabblers.

I think it was around his fifth meeting when I noticed him looking nervous and remember thinking that this would be the night. An hour later he sheepishly walked to the front of the room. “Hello,” he said. “My name is Michael, and I’m a musky fly angler.”

Few can appreciate how difficult it is to stand in front of a group and admit that you have an unhealthy addiction. For most, flyfishing is a release that makes their lives better. It’s hard to make the case that a day spent fishing for trout, for example, could be anything other than healthy. Musky flyfishing is different. I want to believe that it was once a carefree pursuit like most other kinds of flyfishing. People did it for fun or to escape the demands of the modern world. Maybe it wasn’t always the dark place it has become.

Then again, we need only look at the history of musky fishing with conventional gear, and perhaps visit Louis Spray’s grave, to understand where the path would eventually lead. Spray long held a highly controversial and highly contested world record for musky. Originally from Cheboygan County, Michigan, Spray died in 1984 and is buried in Hayward, Wisconsin. His grave reads: “HERE LIES THE REMAINS OF LOUIE SPRAY, THREE RECORD MUSKIES IN HIS DAY.”

It’s hard to accept that, baked in with the adrenaline rush of a musky eat, was maybe a whole bunch of deception, if not outright lying, cheating, and fragile egos. Eventually, you face the inevitable truth that the thing you have come to love doesn’t love you back. Michael was speaking his truth.

“Like many of you,” Michael continued, “I caught my first musky on a fly, by accident, while fishing for smallies. It was May and I was stripping a Murdich Minnow and suddenly that musky just appeared out of nowhere and crushed it. I wasn’t using wire, and maybe if it had bitten me off I wouldn’t be here tonight.” A lot of heads in the crowd nodded in agreement. They understood how it starts.

“It was the coolest thing, and I wanted more. This was about ten years ago, when it still felt like a part of regular flyfishing, you know, just a different species. And there was a whole scene on social media and in person that felt supportive, like a brotherhood. I didn’t know how it was going to change. Or how it was going to change me.” More nodding.

“I bought a 9-weight and an intermediate line, thinking this would be enough. Can you imagine it now? So naive! I tied a few simple flies: single Bufords, Deceivers, and Chupacabras, you know, the stuff no one uses anymore. And I caught some muskies. Not every day, but regularly. Anyway, after I’d caught a few, I figured it was time to start guiding.”

At this, a smattering of laughter filled the room. “I lived near good rivers and figured I could help other people get the rush I was experiencing,” Michael said. “And if I made a few bucks in the process, so be it. I posted on social media and people booked trips. When my clients caught muskies I posted their photos, and more people booked. What I didn’t realize is how many others were doing the same thing. My former clients and a bunch of my friends bought boats and started their own guide services. It suddenly seemed like everyone who’d ever caught a musky was a musky guide.”

Now everyone in the room was laughing and nodding and pointing at themselves. Even a crusty old meeting-attender like me, who has heard this story a hundred times, was having a good chuckle.

“It was all fun, until it wasn’t,” Michael went on. “Something happened and I’m not sure if it happened to me or because of me, you know? Big fish became all that mattered. Like that’s all that defines what you do.” Michael’s voice broke a little, and at that, the room became silent.

“I used to feel like there was camaraderie. We were just a bunch of weirdos fishing for muskies with fly rods. But then… I don’t know if it was social media or guiding or if it’s just what happens when too many people start competing for a limited resource. The dick-waving started. And the lying. And the cheating. Claims of catching an impossible number of muskies per year. People using live bait and then sticking a fly in a fish’s mouth for photos. Companies elevating the worst bullshitters and cheats. No one really knew what to believe. Everyone seemed to be catching more than me, but maybe they weren’t. Or maybe I wasn’t as good at it as I thought I was. And I started to hate musky flyfishing.”

Michael stood there for a moment, and you could see he was starting to tear up. I fought the urge to walk up and put an arm around his shoulder. Sometimes a guy must find the truth on his own and then make his peace with that.

“It started with water loading.” Many of the older people at the meeting nodded. “If you suggested that water loading wasn’t truly flycasting, you got called a ‘purist,’ which in musky flyfishing is an insult, like being a trout weenie.” I could hear the pain in his voice.

“Then the treble hooks and conventional gear guides arrived. People who’d never fished with a fly rod in their lives were suddenly musky flyfishing guides. I know I shouldn’t have cared what anyone else was doing. And mostly I didn’t, until the forward-facing sonar showed up.” Groans in the room. Heads nodding with understanding.

“I mean, fuck that shit, right?” Applause. “What is the point of choosing the harder way to catch fish if you’re just going to cheat your way into finding them?”

“Speak it, brother!” a regular in the third row shouted.

“I became a fly angler because casting a fly rod is a beautiful thing to do. I understand that innovation is important, but I also understand what it means to do something artfully.” Lots of clapping and hell-yeahs.

“Staring at sonar? If this is the way it’s all headed, then I’m through with it,” Michael said, almost in a whisper. “To my former love, I can only say that it’s not you, it’s me.” A long period of silence followed.

“Trout weenie!” a man in the back shouted. “Go wave your fairy wand somewhere else!”

At that, everyone burst out laughing and several people walked up and patted Michael on the back. One attendee, a guy I recognized as one of the musky-fly OGs, an originator of several highly successful musky patterns, walked up and gave him a huge bear hug. “Welcome home,” he said.

For the first time since I noticed him weeks ago, Michael smiled. It won’t be easy for him to leave the one he once loved. But the first step is admitting you have a problem.

Stephen Wisner is a guide in Wisconsin, helping unsuspecting anglers acquire unhealthy musky addictions.