I had the pleasure of being introduced to Musky fishing by a new member of our local club.  Dan is a recent immigrant from Victoria.  He is delighted with his new fishing location since the Steelhead fishing out West has been poor of late.  Contrary, the Musky fishing has not been better in the Ottawa area.  I've blocked the background so as to somewhat disguise the location as it is very close to the city.

Musky fishing is quite different from trout or bass fishing.  Large Northerns also are tentative takers at times. They will follow the fly but not necessarily take it on the retrieve.  Dan thought he had a Musky doing a figure 8 with his rod in front of the tube.  You lower your rod with the fly only a couple of feet from the tip and make weaving motions sideways and up and down.  Turned out to be a 30" walleye.  A little while later he got a heavy strike on the fast retrieve and landed a 'small' Musky around 32"
All I accomplished was to 'move' a Musky but apparently that is considered OK especially for a novice.

Big flashy streamers and long poppers are what is needed and you have to have the right weight and length of rod.  You might also get a significantly sized fish (in the 50-60" range) and you have to get them in real quick and on their way.  Even though they are an ancient fish, they are susceptible to acid build up.

The water is warm this time of year and they love it. This fish was in prime condition.  The related Pike like it a lot cooler. 

Decided to go back to my Lanark lake but the fishing wasn't as good as the last time.  It has been raining off and on a lot this summer.  Not great for crops and not great for fishing either.  In creeks and rivers the water gets murky from all the runoff but in lakes that is not so much the issue.  I believe the water chemistry changes in subtle ways and puts the fish off the bite at least for awhile.  Certainly trout are more fussy about this than bass.  In the 3 hours of morning fishing I had only landed one 12" SM.  But by noon, they started.  Of course I started off with the same rig as I had last time: #3 sink with a Mrs Simpson.  Nothing much doing with that so changed to intermediate which is much more pleasurable to fish with along with a two fly rig of a white WB and a black/green WB.  The black fly seemed more popular.
Its hard to get a good picture when you are by yourself.  I've been having a spirited conversation with members of the local chat line about holding fish up by the mouth.  I've been trying different ways than just showing a bass in the water.  I'm not entirely happy with the solution above as there is a possibility of some slime removal. 
You can see that I am using a Switch rod.  Best rod for a float tube and larger fish!
Astonishing to me to go to these 'private' lakes with cabins.  There are about 20 cabins on this lake but only five were occupied with no-one on the water.   I wish I could afford that level of luxury.   That is why there are still some large bass around relatively easy to catch.  Again, nothing got by casting to shore.  They are still down 20 feet.  ST 74F

I have this nifty semi private Lanark lake that is 45 minutes from home.  Yesterday, I had almost as good fishing as my Quebec lake which takes me 2 3/4 hours to get to! At least 8 SM and LM in the 16-18" range plus one SM at about 20".  The 30" (I measured) pike was an extra bonus almost right at docking to leave.  I've caught this one before in exactly the same spot last year.  Some people don't like pike but I've never met a fish I didn't like.  Surface temp was 74F but it was mostly a sunny day.  I started off with my intermediate line  with the usual cone/bead head green, black and white WBs and caught a few.  Tried the dry line with a popper in some weed beds (nothing doing)  but it wasn't until I switched to my #3 sink and a wild choice of a size 3 Mrs Simpson in order to cross the lake.  I didn't expect to catch anything in the 25ft of water as I usually coast the shoreline, casting to likely spots close to shore and trolling onto the next spot.  But right in the middle of the lake I caught the 20-21" SM (it keeps getting larger).  I caught all sorts of smaller bass in the 12-14" range plus all the dinky ones as well.  All in all, a pretty good day.  Although I'm suffering a bit with sun exposure.  I have a wide brim hate which covers most of my face but even with sun screen I burnt my chin again!  I have to remember to keep putting that stuff on.   Might have to go on the lake looking like a bandit but I'm not sure the cabin owners would appreciate that.  At least they waved at me in a friendly way (this is important).  Not sure I would get the same response with my face all covered.