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Posts: 4080
Location: Elko - Lake Vermilion | Ok,
Let's hear your stories from people in the Bar, work, or other places that have no clue about muskies.
Here's one from yesterday from a guy.... telling me while he was Walleye fishing on Tonka he had a muskie hit his crank bait and got it up to the boat, couldn't get it out of the water, measured it at the side of the boat...72" !
He then told me a story about a "Muskie guy" that caught a 102" muskie on the same lake. !
I have Buddys in N. Mn. that brag about catching 20-30 Walleye in a day and that they have 2 freezers full of fish and then turn around and say that "them dam muskies keep eating our Walleyes".
I love the Bar stories the best. It's Amazing how little booze it takes for some of these guys to exaggerate their stories. |
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Posts: 20180
Location: oswego, il | Had a guy who some may know who told me.he.seen a musky grab a swimming.deer by the neck. |
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Posts: 32800
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | I don't drink, so this place is my 'bar'. I actually have seen a muskie hit a duck. I have also seen a muskie get pecked by a duck. I saw a seagull get eaten, and it didn't come back up. I had a well-oiled-up Navy Seal out on a guide day, A muskie hit his topwater and he literally walked right off the rear deck. All that floated up was his cowboy hat. His buddy, also a Seal, was laughing so hard he was crying. Meanwhile, I see a huge lawsuit coming until he walks--not swims--walks up on the breakline in 4' of water 24 feet away, still holding the muskie rod. We landed the fish, and shortly after, the Seal. |
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Posts: 626
Location: Madison, WI | Always the typical “head was on left side of boat and tail was on the other” or “ I know I guy who went diving at “lake x” and saw a musky so big, he refused to dive there ever again! Or it was new state record!” |
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Posts: 490
Location: NW WI | I work in residential construction, mostly for wealthy cabin owners. I always ask em about the water we're on. My common favorites are: "I don't know anything about musky, Is it safe to swim with them in the lake?" And "I don't like duck hunters, they're always shooting those pretty birds and it's always so early in the morning. But they'd be more than welcome to shoot the geese and seagulls off my dock". |
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Posts: 2280
Location: Chisholm, MN | I was guiding for the governors fishing opener in 2011 and one of the other guides got to talking with me and Muskies came up. He told me that “there are 80 and 100 inchers in deer lake”. He’s seen them off the dock. No point in arguing with someone like that. And he was a guide that day…. |
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Location: Vilas | Had an older gentleman tell me of a 54"-55" fish living under his dock... said he fed it bacon every morning. |
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Posts: 43
| Many years ago while fishing the P.M.T.T. on the Eagle River chain my partner and I decided to fish the inside of a bar on Eagle Lake. We were there a few minutes when a married couple we know pulled up to the same bar, but on the deeper side and made their first casts. The other boat hooks a fish on his first cast and his wife sets her rod down to get the net. While her top water bait is laying on the water, a second fish eats it and pulls her rod into the lake. They net fish # 1, and he grabs another rod with a crankbait . On his first attempt he snags his wifes line and was able to rescue the rod and fish #2. They did have 1 legal fish, but it was a real circus to watch. |
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Posts: 3782
| "A musky killed my husband."
I'm waiting for a plane at the Escanaba Airport wearing my M1 jacket and this old lady comes up and says "A musky killed my husband." Turns out he was fishing on Chicagoan Lake in the UP and somebody saw his apparently empty boat. Went to check it and there he was, dead of a heart attack. He was laying next to a huge dead muskie.
Another Yoop story but about pike...
I stopped for lunch at a tavern on the Kewana Peninsula and was checking out the old pictures hung on the walls. Many pics were about timbermen, miners and commercial fishermen working Lake Superior. Came across a few pics of guys standing next to HUGE northern pike they had hanging from buck poles. These pike were so big they didn't look real. As long as the guys were tall. The pics seemed to be taken maybe in the 70's, not all that long ago from when I saw them around 2000. I had already made friends with a couple DNR fisheries biologists, me doing research to identify sleeper musky lakes. One of them opened up and told me the deal... there are some ancient weed beds, very few and very far apart, along the southern shore of Lake Superior. Each weed bed held a small group of old, huge pike. The pics I saw were what net boats accidently caught raking the weed beds. The DNR knew about the fish, and how/why/where they were caught. My guy told me they usually denied any knowledge to prevent sport fisherman from targeting the very fragile population. He told me only because he knew I was strictly CPR. I kept the info to myself for years and years. If any of you have topo maps of the Groveland Mine Ponds from me, he's the guy to thank because that's where I got them. |
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Posts: 4080
Location: Elko - Lake Vermilion | I also have seen ducks eaten by muskies. twice. one time while fishing a small bay on V a fish we were moving was being chased by a loon for about 5 minutes... pretty cool .
Had a guy tell me that he had over 100 follows in a day !
What do ya say to a guy like that ? |
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Posts: 343
| I caught a nice 48 incher in a small clear river. I released it and it swam down to the bottom. It lay there resting, and I moved on to the next hole. A few minutes later a guy shows up fishing the hole I'm at. He's muskie fishing and sees I'm also chasing muskies, so he motors over to tell me about a 5 foot plus muskie in the hole where I caught my 48. That muskie had to be close to the record for fastest growth. 12 plus inches in about a half an hour, amazing. |
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Posts: 596
Location: Duluth | Had a guy in Maymes in Iron Mountain swear that there were 60 inch pike in the mine ponds on either side of US2 |
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Posts: 20180
Location: oswego, il | Had a guy motor up to us to have a chat. He was.musky fishing wanted to see what we were doing. I had on a 9" grandma and in his southern accent said "yer ****in' up". Tossed us a couple of his home made spinnerbaits. Nice guy but I didn't tell him my lure had 33 fish on it. To this day we use his phrase on each other. |
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Location: Vilas | I`ve lost track of how many "out of season" WR`s That I`ve heard about |
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Posts: 1187
| While I've heard this same basic story from different people over the years, I just heard it again a couple weeks ago. Retired guy from northern Minnesota just moved into one of my buildings here in the Twin Cities, to be closer to his kids. He lived on a lake of about 500 acres. We're talking a little fishing, and I can tell he's not what I would call a serious fisherman. More a guy who fishes alot. Old school type. All about harvest, limits, and tall stories. The lake he lived on is a muskie lake. Not some secret lake or anything. Gets a good amount of pressure, but not pounded. Couple pretty decent fish caught every year, but not giants. He swears he's seen 80 inch fish in there. I gently tried to explain that they aren't quite that big, but he was having none of it, so I just said "I suppose anything is possibel." |
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Posts: 426
| A friend and I were casting an Ohio lake and hooked up a nice fish after releasing it a shore angler who witnessed the catch started to tell us about how many 50in plus he and a friend caught fishing the spot from shore on a regular bases. We thanked the local for the info with no comment on the ridiculous state meant he made. To this day every time we fish the area the story comes up. The spot is a good numbers area with a occasional high 40s in fish.....no 50 yet. |
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Posts: 3782
| I'm sitting in a SW MI bar wearing my M1 hat and a stranger starts telling me about a crazy musky guy who lives on a local lake. The crazy guy has a small blue boat, a big yellow dog and fishes nonstop night and day.
He's talking about me, tho I don't live on that lake, I lived on a nearby lake. And I did indeed hit that little lake very hard, one year I came in second place in the M1 tourney, every fish with my dog from that lake.
I got a laugh but not a big head because I knew there were a thousand musky nuts in WI and MN who knew more and fished way harder than me. |
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| The late Al Denniger was an EMT/Firefighter for city of Milwaukee for over 30 years, but he also spent approx. 6 weeks a year guiding on the Chippewa Flowage, a body of water he loved. He had a story about guiding for two physicians out of the Chicago area. The plan was to split the day between walleye and musky. While the docs were fishing for walleye, Al had a freak accident, gashing his hand badly. Being a professional EMT, he had a complete first aid kit on board, including a suture kit. While pressing a towel against the wound he asked which one would like to do the honors. They both said they were sorry, but liability prevented them from helping. He couldn't believe their reaction and assured them Wisconsin's Good Samaritan laws would shield them. No dice. So, rather than head for shore he began awkwardly suturing his own hand. Hurt like h***. After the first two stitches, he said, 'could one of you please kick me in the nuts to take my mind off the pain?!'. No response, he put in half a dozen stitches, dressed the wound the best he could. They finished out the day, with the doctors not really saying much. Someone in our group asked if he ever guided the docs again. Surprisingly, he said yes, but his fee was a little higher for them.
He had a lot of funny guide stories and was thinking about doing a book when his agent orange related cancer returned and he was not able to finish. |
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Posts: 596
Location: Duluth | North of 8 - 2/14/2022 2:04 PM
The late Al Denniger was an EMT/Firefighter for city of Milwaukee for over 30 years, but he also spent approx. 6 weeks a year guiding on the Chippewa Flowage, a body of water he loved. He had a story about guiding for two physicians out of the Chicago area. The plan was to split the day between walleye and musky. While the docs were fishing for walleye, Al had a freak accident, gashing his hand badly. Being a professional EMT, he had a complete first aid kit on board, including a suture kit. While pressing a towel against the wound he asked which one would like to do the honors. They both said they were sorry, but liability prevented them from helping. He couldn't believe their reaction and assured them Wisconsin's Good Samaritan laws would shield them. No dice. So, rather than head for shore he began awkwardly suturing his own hand. Hurt like h***. After the first two stitches, he said, 'could one of you please kick me in the nuts to take my mind off the pain?!'. No response, he put in half a dozen stitches, dressed the wound the best he could. They finished out the day, with the doctors not really saying much. Someone in our group asked if he ever guided the docs again. Surprisingly, he said yes, but his fee was a little higher for them.
He had a lot of funny guide stories and was thinking about doing a book when his agent orange related cancer returned and he was not able to finish.
A FIB is going to FIB I guess 
Guding seems a lot like coaching, always work, usually fulfilling and sometimes you are presented with people that make you just think wtf!? |
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Posts: 330
Location: SE Wisc | I’ll never forget a trip to Big V with my dad. Got a treble through the web of my hand (#*^@ pike) between my thumb and index finger. We pushed it through, cut the hook, and pulled it free. I had to lay down on the deck from light-headedness and then, suddenly, my father starts swearing. Apparently from the excitement he derned himself! He motored to a nearby island in the Wakemup channel - a very small island with nothing more than one small shrub to use as cover while he finished his business! You guessed it, a boat comes through as he’s squatting there and I couldn’t stop laughing! RIP DAD! Sorry but I had to share! |
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Posts: 8720
| I remember the time I decided to put some musky pictures on my desk at the office. Everybody who walked in (Keep in mind these were all downtown Chicago city types, and young to boot) and saw them had the same reaction:
What is THAT?!
Did you actually CATCH that thing?
Really?
Did you eat it?
Only one person in our entire office of 35 people had ever been fishing or heard of a muskie. Grandparents had a place on a lake bla bla, and they saw one one that was longer than their rowboat...
Funny though... Most of the stories of giant muskies over 6 feet come from guys who should know better and in places where muskies don't really get much bigger than 45".
Here's a good one. Bass fishing down in FL with a guy from PA. He knew a little about muskies, never fished for them, but was very interested in the idea of figure 8's and what that's all about. So I explain it, and throw a cast, at the end of which I started to demonstrate how you do a figure 8. He says: "So... Does that actually WORK?" Wouldn't you know it, a fish comes up and smashes my lure on the surface. "Yes, yes it does!" Poor guy is probably still figure 8'ing after every cast to this day... |
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Posts: 1203
Location: Walker, MN | "Grandpa back in the day caught the lake record muskie, shot it, and shot a hole in the bottom of the boat." I've heard versions of that one a couple of times, from different people. |
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| Masqui-ninja - 2/17/2022 8:21 PM
"Grandpa back in the day caught the lake record muskie, shot it, and shot a hole in the bottom of the boat." I've heard versions of that one a couple of times, from different people.
Wonder how many folks actually did shoot a hole on their boat. Couple years ago, whole cleaning my hands off on my dock, wedding ring went in the lake. Could not find. Got a guy whose hobby was finding rings in water. He found it but also found a .25 cal. 32 cal.shell casing next to the dock. Where our home is once was part of a resort with fishing cabins. 50 years later, dock is in pretty much same place theirs was. He said it was common to find old shell casings next to docks on older properties in lakes with musky. |
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