The luminous, blue neon numbers of the clock drew my semi-conscious attention momentarily in the otherwise dark room. 5:10 AM. At another time of year seeing those numbers would  spark an immediate response inside my head. Bolt upright in seconds, I would  quickly begin my morning routine before heading out on another angling adventure. But, this being a winter morning, it only meant that little time remained until it would be my turn to chase our two-year-old around the house at a ridiculously early hour.
                 
The warmth of the covers quickly began dragging me back to sleep. I closed my eyes. The scene before me was a pleasant and familiar one...
               
Sitting in my fishing boat, tied up to the 20ft L-shaped pier at my sister's place in northern Wisconsin, I yelled the short distance up to the cabin for my eight-year-old to hurry. With only  an hour or so before dinner,  we were headed out on the lake to fish a school of crappies I had found earlier that morning. For me, few things bring as much delight as spending time fishing with one of my own. My daughter, having agreed to join me, assured such pleasure. Emma bounded thru the screen door. Across the deck she ran, then down the steps to the lake, Little Mermaid life-jacket in tow, sporting a Chicago Bulls hat that was a match to the one I was wearing.
                 
Revving up the Mercury 25 on the back of my Northwoods fourteen footer on a calendar-picture afternoon,  the fragrant, pine-scented air rushed past us as I  accelerated to full throttle. Accompanied by enthusiasm, we sped the short distance across the small lake to our destination.
               
 I eased off the gas. My excitement  was replaced with mild irritation as I noticed a large pontoon boat, occupied by an elderly couple, idling over to the same weed edge I was headed for. On most days I would have found our proximity to one another unacceptable and motored off to fish elsewhere. With time at a premium and the knowledge that the fish were here, I continued  to within a short cast of the weeds, as did they. I acknowledged them with a half-hearted wave which they returned in kind. I dropped the anchor and  prepared to fish.

The simplest equipment was used. My six-foot light action spinning rod and  reel was spooled with six pound test mono. To this, a small safety-pin spinner with a tiny Colorado blade was attached to a sixteenth-ounce, unpainted jig head dressed with a two-inch, purple, paddle tailed grub. This outfit sat ready from the morning's fishing. I tied an identical lure to Emma's spin cast rig.
               

 My first cast netted results. After a short protest , I lifted the nine-inch silver and black speckled prize gently from the water. I was pleased to find  the fish I was catching earlier in the day were still active. Hopefully Emma would be able to catch some on her own, not always possible with such a young fisher girl. My second and third fish came within a few  casts.  Our neighbors in the pontoon were also  scoring, he with a slip-bobber and minnow, her with a small tube jig. Although Emma was casting and retrieving as instructed she caught nothing. Motivated by our limited time and my daughter's lack of success, I made a decision: Emma would do battle with the next fish I hooked.

The telltale thump on the line told me another crappie had been fooled by my artificial offering. I leaned back, gently setting the hook on my paper-mouthed quarry. I instructed Emma to give me her rod while she took mine. She fumbled to grip my spinning rod.  I finished retrieving her lure.
                 
Her first few cranks on the underhand reel brought enough resistance to arc the light rod over. The zinging sound the reel emitted as she continued to crank told me the crappie was hung up. Obviously the little fish had swum down into the cover during our exchange of rods and had gotten tangled. Your patience is always tested when fishing with little ones, and my annoyance with  this outing, that wasn't working out as I had hoped, was becoming more difficult to mask. "Pull harder", I urged!

                 
The rod yo-yoed between bent double and straight as Em obediently attempted to free her adversary.  To relieve my growing stress level I turned towards my new best friends in the pontoon and shrugged. Amused, they had been watching our Abbott and Costello act, all the while hauling in more crappies. " Happens that way with me and my granddaughter all the time", the old man responded. "You might want to try a bobber", he stated knowingly, pointing to his own set-up. I nodded appreciatively, not in agreement, but somehow feeling better than before our brief interaction.
           
 Emma handed me the rod as requested. My experienced hand told me immediately something was wrong with this "snag". It had a pulse! The throb-throb-throb I felt wasn't that of a heartbeat. It told the story of a big fish which had attacked and now had a death grip on the hooked little crappie held in its jaws. Stunned, I watched as the line slowly began to move off, now positioned between us and the pontoon boat.
                 
"Emma we've got a muskie!" I shouted. She shot me a, "Dad, 10 seconds ago you were mad at me for getting snagged, and I'm not falling for this one", look. Ok. So I tell "fish stories" to my kiddo a little too often. Before I could say, "No, really," the line rose abruptly and the fish torpedoed up thru the nearly calm, translucent surface of the lake. Again and a third time the muskellunge split the water. Em screamed - so did the reel. I bowed to the fish each time it jumped to lighten the pressure on the line.
            
Another surprise followed: I was still connected! As unlikely as winning the lottery, the tiny hook had somehow relocated, finding a new home in the muskie's lip, safe from hundreds of jagged, razor-edged teeth.

The Esoxs veered towards deep water. "Do you need a net?", the man in the pontoon yelled.  I briefly entertained the thought since the one I had would be woefully inadequate. But the idea of our boat, the fish, and the pontoon all coexisting in a small space while he handed me a net seemed more absurd than the idea  I would ever get this fish close enough to need it. I declined his offer.
               

Our opponent hovered now. The rod pulsed heavily with each powerful head shake.

                 
Emma's look was a mixture of terror and excitement as I explained how she would help me capture the beast if I ever got it close enough. My brief tutorial had my little girl prepared to dip the panfish-sized net sideways in the water deep enough so I could lead the fish's head in like a dog jumping through a hoop. Then it would just be a matter of her lifting  for all she was worth. Her frightened look told me she was anything but convinced she could pull this maneuver off. I wasn't sure it would ever come to pass.

Our prize was on the move. It wheeled right, moving around the bow and headed back to the shallow weeds against all the pressure I dared exert. Nothing I did stopped the shimmering giant from burying itself in the dense aquatic growth. I knew this was it, or would be as soon as the tangle of vegetation parted our tenuous attachment.
           
Resigned to losing but not wanting our magical encounter to end, I relaxed the pressure being applied. The great fish bored deeper into the bed of weeds. During the next few moments long strands of broken-off coontail and cabbage slid up the line and hung like cobwebs in a gently breeze, dislodged by each twist and turn the muskie made.
               
Without warning the lunge rocketed to the sky for the fourth time shaking most of the debris free during its spectacular flight and landing.
             
 My excitement level continued to rise. Our  flimsy bond still held. The clearly tiring muskie wallowed just beneath the surface less than 20 feet from us. My aching right arm and wrist reapplied more pressure in an attempt to turn the fish and bring it along-side the boat. Fifteen feet, ten feet, five feet, and then, with a flick of its powerful tail, all the line gained and a little more sailed off the reel. Tired but not beaten the brute continued to resist. This scene repeated itself over and over.
              
Soon the distance of each run began to shorten. It was time to take our shot. I told Emma to get the net in the water so she could capture the wild-eyed fish on its next pass by the boat. Emma readied. I applied slightly more pressure and the fish's angular snout moved perfectly past the metal ring and into the netting. My petite, athletic eight-year-old squealed fearfully and began to lift.

                 
The fish thrashed wildly when the net's rim touched its belly. Em muscled the muskie airborne. Water showered down on us. The fish, less than half its length able to fit in the fifteen-inch deep mesh, cart wheeled back into the lake exploding the water's surface like a firecracker. I maneuvered my weakening competitor back for another try. No luck.  Again Emma executed perfectly, but, hanging mostly out of the net, the fish was simply too big for her to lift into the boat. And again the muskie crashed back into the water with the little lure holding fast.

Certain that we had used up enough luck to make a cat jealous, I had my daughter hand me the net. In one continuous motion I switched the rod to my left hand and raised it as high as I could reach. I leaned hard to my right gliding the fish towards the net . It flared its gills, mouth wide-open, as it hit the bottom of the mesh  for the third and final time.

                 
I swept left and lifted. Just then the line parted with a crack throwing me off balance
momentarily. The tremendous weight of the muskie and its violent head shaking spun the handle of the net upside-down in my hand. For an instant time stood still.  In a blink gravity would take over, and the subsequent splashdown would declare the fish a winner of this epic battle. But fate had another idea. The muskie's freefall to freedom halted as abruptly as a bungee jumper at the end of his tether. Its inward angled teeth had become tangled in the mesh, and there it hung outside the net, inches from the lake.
            
I reacted instinctively dropping the rod and placing my left hand above my right on the net. I swung the writhing fish aboard just as it freed its teeth and landed with a thud on the bottom of the boat. It lay there motionless except for the rhythmic flaring of its gills.

A long, stunned silence was broken by applause from the pontoon. I looked their way, put both hands on my head, and just laughed. Spent, I slumped into the pedestal seat near the bow. Emma, fearful of our new companion, hopped up in my arms and alternated between laughs and sobs releasing the pent-up emotions from this titanic conflict with the biggest fish she'd ever seen. It would measure slightly less than thirty-six inches and weighed  better than 13 pounds.
               
"Da Dee, Da Dee I up, come git me," my two-year-old screeched. I opened my eyes and flipped on the lamp. The clock read 5:30. And there, next to it, was a very special picture of me, my daughter, and a muskie we had landed, photographed, and released together, not so many months ago during our summer vacation.

If only dreams could be so good.