Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/528216
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 1 0 6 T hey say it's the fish of ten-thousand casts. Maybe so. I truly believed that for many years and still won't argue with those odds. Twice before I had traveled all the way from Georgia to Canada to do battle with the great muskellunge, only to fish for days with nary a strike. But I found a way to beat the odds. If you know someone who is all about muskellunge and who has a cottage on an iconic muskie water, you're halfway there. And if your friend knows someone who has spent 42 years on the same lake chasing these great fish, and is willing to guide you, now you've tipped the scales, lowered the odds, and the equation is slightly in your favor. But the king of freshwater gamefish is still a long way from your net. For more than four decades I have been an avid collector of duck and fish decoys. Through this venue I met Jon Deeter, who along with Gary Guyette owns the country's oldest and largest decoy-auction firm. I was lamenting my former muskie woes to Jon several years ago, and was surprised to learn that he had a cottage on New York's Lake Chautauqua where he caught muskies on a regular basis. When he invited me to be his guest the following summer, he didn't have to ask twice. Then he told me about his friend, Captain Larry Jones, who has been chasing muskies on the lake for nearly a half-century. Larry has made a science of studying these magnificent fish; they're like extended family to him. Martha and I could stay in Jon's wonderful cottage on the lake where Captain Larry would mentor me for three full days. We booked the trip for the summer of 2012, but bad luck came at the outset. The month of July proved extremely warm and a dense bloom of green algae covered the lake. Captain Larry predicted the fishing would be poor and suggested we come the following summer. We bought a second pair of airline tickets for July of 2013 and reset all arrangements. Then more bad luck. A few weeks before we were due to leave, my heart went into serious atrial fibrillation, flutter, and tachycardia. My cardiologist scheduled me for an ablation to fix the problem. The operation was successful, but my trip was ablated along with my heart. I knew that catching a muskie was hard, but this was trying my patience. We rescheduled for 2014. After losing four airline tickets, we decided to drive up from Georgia. This third attempt appeared lucky for us because the weather and lake conditions were ideal. Martha and I reached Lake Chautauqua after a two-day drive and met Jon at his cottage, where he gave us a quick overview of the lake and then handed us the key. He was off to New Hampshire to arrange a decoy auction for the following week. F ormed by glaciers 15,000 years ago, Chautauqua is one of several finger lakes in the western-most part of the state. Bordered by the small town of Mayville on the north end and Jamestown on the south, the lake is 17 miles long, with 21 square miles of surface area. Chautauqua is shaped like an hourglass, with two long basins, one on each end. The north basin