Me and my fishing partner launched at allen york at first light to do some small mouth fishing we started off on a point in the nw side of the lake that usually is pretty good for us after 1/2 hour and nothing we moved I was using a new crank bait I just picked up and thought would work good here in the second spot we hit things were much different we hit 3 smallies one good one at 3 lbs after a while we moved again and tried another area and did really well we got 6 more in the 3lb range we were stoked this was much better that usual for us here we were High fiven and liven it up of corse we forgot the camera at home after awhile it got slow there so we moved to another spot and along one shore line we had several muskies chase our crank baits right up to the boat but would not strike we both had heavier rods with us and steel leader so we switched over to musky fishin for about an hour or so with larger size baits nothing Dan was really working it he wanted to get one for his barbeque later that evening I got bored and switched back to smallie fishin and got two more big ones one at 3 1/2 lbs and 1 at 4 lbs my biggest from tapps yet in (and I fish there a lot and for at least 10 yrs) now comes the best part I see Dan's other rod laying there with a cool crank bait on it and ask to use his rod for a minute and he said ok I only made one or two cast with it and this very large musky takes this plug right at the boat and goes ballistic taking line like its tread I've caught lots of muskies and knew this was a good one, first thing I asked Dan what lb line he had on this rod, he looks at me and smiles 6 lb he says but its new!! knowing I'd have a very slim chance at landing this fish with 6lb test and no steel leader meanwhile the fish has run out from shore and under a log boom and turned so the line is actually running along the underwater chain anchoring the logs in place and is now jumping about 200 ft away while I was still trying to pass the rod under the log which I did and now some how the line is hooked up. Anyway after getting the pole under the log the line was not somehow hooked on a log down further and seemed that the fish was gone I moved the boat down to unhook the line and to my surprize the fish was still on just holding out deeper now there was nothing in the way of me and the fish exept that my boat was still on the wrong side of the log so carefully I moved the boat down and around the end of the log boom just keeping light pressure on the fish I didn't want him getting close to the logs again now finally out in open water the epic battle began again and after several more line burning runs and failed attempts to land this fish with no net, with Dan's help was able to reach around him and pull him up on to the deck at 21.5 lbs this was the biggest we have seen or caught from tapps yet. This was by far the best fishing day we have had this year if not in years, please note all the smallies were released but the muskie didn't fare as well I wanted to see if they tasted as good from tapps as from mayfield since this was the first legal size one we have caught from tapps he was kept but please catch&release most if not all your fish. If you want to share some info about lake tapps feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] thanks and tight lines.

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