Chasing Ghosts: The Grind and Glory of Musky on the Fly

With: hardmanfishingadventures

We caught up with Jon Hardman to talk about one of the craziest catches of his life—a near 49-inch beast from the waters of West Virginia. From the moment he set the hook to the celebration that followed, he walks us through how it all went down. We also got into his go-to musky setup, what keeps him going through the grind, and what’s next on his fly fishing bucket list.

Can you tell us the story behind your massive musky —what was the day like, and how did it all come together?

Although most of my fishing trips are solo adventures, this trip was a bit different. My buddy Beau, who owns Natives Fly Shop in West Virginia, invited me out to camp with him and a handful of his buddies. Almost all of these guys are super dedicated musky fishermen, and what’s even more impressive is that we all fly fish for musky; which, in my opinion, is something only insane people do.

The entire goal with that camp was to get a bunch of people together to musky fish a handful of West Virginia waters to see how many fish we could catch and swap stories. The state of West Virginia has a native strain of musky that lives in the Ohio River Drainage.

The morning I caught the massive musky was not all that special. It was slightly overcast and, to be honest, I was barely awake when we hit the water. One of the guys I was fishing with, Frank, mentioned that he had caught musky in one of the first bends of the river after we launched the boat.

Frank knew this river far better than I did; I had only fished this section of water one or two times prior and never done well, so I took note. As we got up to the bend in the river, it was void of cover, mostly just a sandy flat, with the exception of one downed tree. As we got to the downed tree, I slung a cast up against the base of the tree on the bank and only got one strip in before a commotion on the surface caused me to strip set.

Before I knew it, I had a musky on within 20 minutes of launching the boat, which rarely happens. We didn’t get a good look at the fish for a while because it kept close to the bottom of the river, but I knew it was a heavy fish. Typically, musky fights don’t last that long, but I was struggling to get this fish off the bottom to net it.

Finally, after a 5 minute fight or so, I was able to lift the fish up far enough to get it in the net. Celebration ensued, of course, but we had no idea how large the fish was. We were throwing around measurements in the mid 40s, which would have been my largest musky on the fly, but nothing close to 50.

It wasn’t until I went to lift the musky out of the net for a photo that I realized how heavy the fish was. We put the fish on the bump board and the fish came in at just a tad under 49 inches, a fish of a lifetime for any fly angler. We released the fish and watched it swim back into the depths of the river, hoping that one day someone else would be lucky enough to get a chance at it. 

What’s your favorite gear setup for musky fishing, and how does it help you land these elusive giants?

Right now I use a 9 foot 10 wt TFO BC big fly rod. A 10 wt is honestly a little bit light for a 49 inch fish, but I bought that size of rod purposefully to creek fish for musky in West Virginia. This is my favorite way to target these fish and something I wish I had more time to do. I have intermediate sinking line from Cortland and go back and forth between using Cortland’s Tie-Able Stainless Steel Leader Material to make leaders and using store bought leaders.

The big thing with the leaders is making sure that you’re either using wire leaders or very heavy fluorocarbon so that the fish’s teeth can’t bite through the line when you finally hook one of these fish. They can be huge and weigh upwards of 50 pounds, so upsizing all of your gear is a must, and every knot must be perfect. It is probably the most difficult fish to catch on the fly, so when the fish does eventually eat after 10,000 casts the last thing you want is for your gear to fail you. 

Musky are known as the “fish of 10,000 casts.” What keeps you motivated during those long stretches between bites?

Fishing with friends makes the long stretches of fish-less casting a little less miserable. I have a buddy of mine that I’ve musky fished with at least 3 or 4 times with no musky caught, so roughly 24+ hours of fishing without a musky, but we’ve never gone out and not had a blast. You’re also usually floating or on some sort of boat / raft / kayak when musky fishing, so there’s always something to see.

The bottom line is, you just have to love fishing and love how difficult it is to find a musky. It’s a lot more like hunting than it is fishing. They have a way of breaking your spirits just before giving you an adrenaline rush that will match that of anything else on earth. 

What’s next for you and your fly fishing adventures?

I’ve got a lot planned this year, which will of course involve looking for more musky. I plan on dedicating one day a week (at least) to musky fishing through the spring. West Virginia has a lot of very unique musky water that I’m excited to continue to explore. But aside from musky I’m also going to try to complete the Western Native Trout Challenge, which is traveling around and catching every native trout out west in their native range; this is something I’ve wanted to do for a solid 5 or 6 years now and haven’t gotten the opportunity to do it.