- Okay, well, we'll see what I can do here.
This is really my favorite way of fishing.
[line casts out "whir"]
- Catching a muskie is
a very random thing.
- For Jim Olson, there's nothing more peaceful
than rowing around Crab Lake in his 14-foot boat.
He just hopes it doesn't stay that way.
- You hope it doesn't stay quiet all the time.
You hope there gets to be a commotion.
- Jim is a muskie fisherman.
- This is one of the oldest lures that they ever made.
- And that requires a lot of patience.
- You gotta be stubborn
and bullheaded.
Yeah, it doesn't really make any sense to fish for muskies.
Somehow, you can't get it out of your blood.
- Jim can pinpoint the exact moment it happened.
- I was ten years old,
back in 1949, with my first muskie.
33 inches.
And that one caused me to become a muskie fisherman
for life.
- Jim's father, Paul, introduced him to muskie fishing.
- He kept telling me, "The only fish to fish for."
- Jim has a different interpretation.
- I keep saying,
"It's child abuse to
teach a kid how to fish for muskies
and then have some success."
- Despite catching his first muskie at age ten,
Jim was not a natural.
- After I caught my first one,
it was 17 years before I caught my second one.
So I am persistent.
- Jim and his wife Judy raised a family in Madison,
but muskies were always on his mind.
- When we bought this-- wanted to buy a place up north.
I wanted it to be on a muskie lake.
- They eventually landed on Crab Lake.
A quiet lake in Vilas County,
filled with back bays and islands.
Jim was still casting for muskies then.
And caught maybe one a year.
Then, a friend convinced him to try rowing.
- So I thought, you know,
I wasn't having much luck casting for 'em,
maybe I'd try this.
- He built this boat himself in 1997
and took it out for the first time
on Fourth of July weekend.
- I caught two muskies that night.
I don't think I'd caught two in a year.
And I caught two right out here in the bay.
One was 42 inches.
- The fish haven't stopped hitting since then.
- Fish on!
Got it right going over the weed bed.
[water splashing, fishing reel whirs with tension]
Oh, I lost it!
- This one got away,
but it still provided some action on a peaceful day.
- It seemed to me like, from the way it played,
it was a good--
It was probably a 40-inch fish.
- And a story that will live on inside the cabin.
- I think that was probably 45.
Or 40 to 45.
I said 40 last night. It's grown a few inches.
They're entitled to do that when you lose them.
- The fish on the walls inside the cabin
provide a hundred more stories.
- I've caught a lot of muskies.
I have a lot of stories.
Most of them true.
- Jim himself has taken credit for 75 muskies,
but dozens more have been caught with him at the oars,
and someone else reeling in the fish.
- If it's a grandkid out, they always get the fish.
- All of his grandkids have reeled one in.
- Well, they want to be on the--
They want their picture on the board.
- Right in the middle of the board
is a photo that shows off Paul Olson's first muskie.
- That was in 1942.
Caught that up in the Chippewa Flowage, and that, of course,
made him a muskie fisherman for life.
- Jim can't help but think of his dad every day.
He even named the boat after him.
- The reason I call it "The Hopper"
is because that's what our oldest daughter called my dad.
It was "Papa," but she had trouble with her /h/s
so she kept calling him "Hoppa."
So I call it "The Hopper."
He passed away before I got into this.
I think he would have enjoyed this success.
- Jim says it's easier to row than it is to cast,
so he sees no end to his lifelong pursuit of muskie.
- I can row for quite a while.
Even at 77, I think I can go for a while longer.
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