False I gasped that I must have seen some-thing very impressive. In his attempt to get the shot he pivoted his weight on the ball of his foot, causing a sharp sound much like a basketball player’s shoe sole being rubbed on the court floor. We all know that sound. Well, I’m here to tell you that it was the only sound in the entire universe, and it stopped that huge fish on a dime. She stopped as if she had run head on into a brick wall and sunk slowly out of sight. Talk about depres-sion, I was suffering, as was Brian. We had no clue how sensitive she would be. The next day our weather conditions were improving for the sun bathers of the world but not in terms of helping us catch this monster. Again we approached the area as quietly as we could; work-ing every piece of structure we could see. Then, just as we were entering the area I felt was key, an area consisting of lily pads, cabbage and coontail, we wit-nessed a relatively large snake leave the shoreline attempting to cross the bay. However, it never made it. That same monster we had been working for two days slipped up behind the snake and in plain sight of all three of us, ate that unassuming snake. This was truly an eye opening experience. The fact Mike was getting the lure to pop as it worked it’s side to side magic on it’s way back to the boat, was the only difference between how we had worked them in the past, as opposed to how we would now work them.

False Weeks later I got to thinking about what had taken place and decided to design a lure that resembled the action the snake had just be-fore its demise. The results of those efforts have come to be known as the Poe’s Giant Jackpot. It worked exactly like the snake, thus making me a happy boy. There was only one problem: it didn’t work. I couldn’t catch a muskie on it to save my life. Pike? No problem. We could catch plenty of pike. But muskies? Not a chance. That drought lasted until 1991, when my brother Mike and I were on a muskie lake in Ontario fighting extremely cold conditions. We were drawing fish to the boat on M& Gs, Reef Hawgs, Bobbie Baits and others, but we failed to get any of them to engage. Until my brother Mike asked what my best lure for 66- degree water was. My reply was, “ what”? So he asked again, “ what is your best lure in 66- degree water”? In disbelief, I told him I didn’t have a real productive muskie lure in that temperature range. However, I informed him that we had been killing big pike on the Jackpot for years in temps up to 65. Upon hearing that, he asked for a Jackpot and I delivered. At the very next stop, he presented the Jackpot with a long cast and asked how he should work it back. I instructed him to drop his rod tip thus tightening the line, lift the rod tip about a foot or so taking up the slack in the pro-cess and continue this motion causing the jackpot to swing from side to side. Well he did so, but instead of simply swinging the lure from side to side he was forcing the lure to jump a bit, causing the tail to dig in and making this unique sound in the process. Just as I was about to tell him to calm it down and keep it flat to the surface this very ag-gressive 47” muskie stopped the lure and me in my tracks. He had just gotten devoured all the way to his elbows and was hang-ing on for dear life. What a sight to see. She came from no-where and blew that thing out of the water. One down! We left the area and proceeded up the lake to a soft point with cabbage and timber. While Mike continued to work his Jackpot, I stuck with my Reef Hawg - for all of three casts. Again, working the Jackpot faster than I would have, he engaged another very nice muskie, a solid 46 incher. I was being schooled and I loved every precious moment of the lessons I was being taught. It’s a blessing being able to acknowl- Poe’s “ HANAVA Almost 10 inches the Available at fine Bob Mehsikomer with a monster Witch Bay Camp muskie, on a Poe’s Giant Jackpot