CONNEAUT, Pa. — Long and gray, like a big bent cigar, the muskellunge hurdled from the water, throwing its tail to the right and its head to the left in a single motion. It spit the silver lure from its mouth, splashed back into the lake and was gone.
"Muskie!" hollered Nico Summaria as his friends turned to see slack line spooling back onto his reel.
The action started soon after a late morning start Sunday on Conneaut Lake, where so far this year Summaria has boated 20 muskellunge in the 20- to 30-inch range, as well as Northern pike up to 25 inches. Earlier this month, Summaria sent a photo of himself cradling a 46-inch muskie caught and released Oct. 10. I was happy to accept an invitation to join him and his cohorts on their next muskie trip, not knowing we would be overwhelmed with Northerns.
As water temperatures throughout the region dropped to the mid-60s, muskellunge, the long-revered fish of 10,000 casts, have been predictably surfacing with more regularity. Other fishermen, including Summaria's fishing buddies Rob Quinn and Clayton Evans, recently had muskellunge encounters on Conneaut Lake. An angler reported catching and releasing 12 muskies in two weeks at Pymatuning Reservoir, also in Crawford County. Muskellunge from 20 to 51 inches were landed, lost or located in Western Pennsylvania lakes including Kinzua Dam, Tionesta, Edinboro, LeBoeuf, Woodcock Lake, the tailrace of the Shenango Reservoir, Lake Arthur, Crooked Creek, Conemaugh, Loyalhanna and Youghiogheny River Lake. Muskie catches were reported on the Allegheny River system as far south as Harmar, where a 30-incher was released in late September between the islands under the Pennsylvania Turnpike bridge.
Friends since high school, Summaria, Quinn and Evans, all of Peters, are big fish hunters. Their strategies, tactics and gear are focused on finding and wrestling in trophy-size freshwater Leviathans that they photograph and carefully, respectfully release. Their videos are posted at The Daily Hook Set on Instagram and YouTube.
Muskellunge are the alpha predators wherever they live, usually solitary and scattered. Most anglers troll for them to cover large expanses of water, weaving zig-zag patterns over submerged features and swinging close to wood and weed beds.
Summaria, who grew up in a family with a camp at Conneaut, has a cartographer's knowledge of the 929-acre lake and its underwater labyrinth of weeds, sandbars and drop-offs where the muskellunge lie in wait.
"They're ambush predators hiding down in vegetation, at the edges of channels through the weeds and at ledges," he said. "I'd rather cast than troll [and] we go where they're most likely to be. Often, but not always, it's big, heavy lures and long casts. It's a lot of casting. Your arms get tired, but we're doing pretty well this year."
The pitch-and-reel strategy works particularly well at Conneaut because of its ancient origin.
Before the building of impoundments, Conneaut was inland Pennsylvania's largest lake, gouged by a glacier some 14,000 years ago. Most lakes dammed for recreation are drawn down in the fall to reduce weed growth. Conneaut Lake was dammed and raised in the early 1800s as part of a proposed north-south auxiliary to the cross-state Pennsylvania Canal. The plan dissolved with the advent of the railroad and the dam, located on the canal route in Meadville, was abandoned. Since then the lake has drained naturally through its original outflow southeast through Geneva Marsh to French Creek, which itself was reversed by the same Upper Paleolithic glacier.
Now mostly shallow but with depths of 75 feet, Conneaut Lake holds its cold water late into the spring. With the exception of some nearshore defoliant spraying for recreational boaters, weeds remain rooted as deep as 20 feet yearlong and rise to the surface in places, creating a lush underwater forest. The high oxygen content and cover attract huge numbers of prey fish. Muskies and Northern pike hide in the tangles and attack.
Muskellunge, from the Chippewa "masquinongy" or "ugly fish," are native to Pennsylvania waters from Lake Erie through the Ohio River watershed. Voracious predators, they are among the state's fastest growing fish, reaching 1 foot in length in their first four months. But the mortality of vulnerable newly hatched fry is high, a problem not helped by the fact that adults are prone to cannibalizing their young. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission cultures and stocks fingerling muskies to maintain the statewide fishery.
As recently as 2012, agency biologists considered Conneaut Lake to be "last chance waters" where a struggling muskie population was failing to meet assessment benchmarks and at risk of being dropped from the stocking program. The size of stocked muskellunge fingerlings was increased, and a 2019 trap net survey found a rebounding population of 28- to 41-inch muskies with 14% percent measuring 40 inches or larger. Subsequent angler reports have shown further improvement.
"The PFBC has done a great job," said Summaria. "In 2010 I would catch 1-2 [muskies] per year, most of them in the 20-30 inch range. I have caught 20 muskies this year. To me, someone who fishes Conneaut Lake 30-40 times a year, [it's] a massive success."
On Sunday, he, Quinn and Evans varied their tactics to accommodate habitat that changed as they motored around the lake. Their 7- to 9-foot heavy-weight casting rods were strung with 80- to 100-pound braided line tipped with 8- to 12-inch fluorocarbon leaders rated at 100- to 120-pound test. Lines were rigged with 3/4 -ounce Bucktails, 4-inch diving-lip crankbaits, 6-inch Bull Dawgs, 8-inch soft plastic Pike Musky Dawgs with twister tails and Ned Rig jigs with No. 4 hooks. Summaria rigged my rod with Bucktails and a fat plastic Bondy Bait for vertical jigging.
At about 10 a.m. the water was slightly choppy and 65 degrees under cloud cover. Quinn maneuvered his boat at the outer edge of a dense patch of Eurasian watermilfoil in 17 feet of water and steered the electric motor parallel to shore. Summaria's close encounter with the acrobatic 20- to 25-inch muskellunge was over in seconds. It was the last muskie we'd see on a day that turned into an exciting nonstop Northern pike adventure.
In seven hours on increasingly wind-whipped waves, the three boated and released about 10 Northerns from 18 to 24 inches at a pace so fast we lost count. They lost another half dozen presumed pike and watched several more follow lures to the side of the boat and quickly disappear into the depths.
The controversial state record muskellunge was taken on Conneaut Lake in 1924. At 54 pounds 3 ounces and about 5 feet long, it is believed by some to be the biggest fish ever caught in Pennsylvania.
