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Posts: 17
| I wanted to share this with muskie fishermen, as you guys will probably appreciate just how outlandish this whole story is.
I wanted to preface this first by stating, I'm not much of a muskie fisherman and know very little about it. I've primarily fished in the fall & wintertime for steelhead, salmon, and browns. In the spring and summer, I've usually targeted bass, pike, and walleye.
Prior to this, my sole experience with a muskie was a 5 lb tiger that I caught and released in the Susquehanna river in Binghamton in 1993, casting crankbaits about 2 am on opening day for walleye. Oh, and in 1990 a buddy and I spent a week fishing at Chautaugua Lake - while we were primarily fishing for bass and walleye, we tried our hand at casting big plugs and spinners along the weedbeds for muskie with absolutely zero success.
So let's go back to last weekend, September 10th. My friend Marty and I are in my boat, drifting crayfish for smallmouth bass. The action had been slow - but I expected it - winds out of the east-northeast, and a rather pronounced cold front had dropped temps from the 70s the day before to the 50's.
So, I get a hit on a crayfish and hook a nice 3 lb smallmouth bass - a decent size smallmouth bass by most standards. I start to play the fish, but it darts towards Marty's end of the boat, and gets tangled with his line before he could finish reeling in. This caused me to stop reeling in the bass for a few seconds, while Marty tried unsuccessfully to free our lines.
I feel a very strong pull on my line - I exorted Marty to just cut his line, but his line breaks before he can do so. And somehow, the fish is still on.
I continue to play the 'fish' - it now rises towards the surface as I reel.
Slowly, a huge shape takes form as it nears the surface - 20-30 feet from the boat. For both Marty and me, it was a "WHAT IS IT????" moment. I'd never seen anything like it in my life. I was actually fearful for an instant - I've watched too many movies like "Creature from the Black Lagoon"
For you see, this huge muskie had seized the smallmouth bass during the time Marty and I had tangled lines, and now this huge fish refused to let go of my bass, the bass was pinned sideways in the muskie's jaws, the bass' head sticking out one side, the tail on the other, for all the world looking like a bone in a German Shepard's mouth.
The muskie continues to clench the bass in its teeth - and rather docily allows itself to be reeled to the side of my boat.
Marty stands there, looking at the muskie , and dumbfounded, asks me if I had a camera onboard - I said "forget the camera - try to net it!" or something to that effect. My memories of these events are surprisingly foggy.
Right after I said this, the muskie darts for bottom with his snack, peeling line easily off my light-action spinning reel. I figured it was goodbye, muskie, but again, somehow, I reel the Musky back up to the boat - I think he didn't fight as doggedly as they're renowed for, simply because he himself wasn't hooked, nor did he feel the barb. He probably was thinking (if his tiny brain could cogitate a thought) that his prey was somehow fighting back, and he needed to keep up his crushing vise-like hold on the bass until it was subdued.
So now Marty takes my landing net, a high-quality net which has handled many a bass, walleye and northern pike (up to 13 lbs) , and manages to scoop ONLY the head and part of the body into the net. I didn't think we stood a chance in hell of pulling it off - ie, actually boating the fish. The muskie was STILL holding onto the bass, btw.
A frantic few seconds take place which, again, is very foggy in my mind - - the Musky now begins to thrash, Marty is lifing so hard, the net handle is beginning to fold and break - so I grab at both the hoop of the net (the handle is bending and about to break) and the fish's tail.
By some miracle, musky AND its bass prey come into the boat, and are plopped onto the floor of my front casting platform.
I decided to keep the muskie - I now feel badly about that because I've always been a strong advocate of catch and release. And typically, the only fish I've kept was an occasional walleye for eating, and for fish mounts. But I wanted to get this fish mounted because of the weird circumstances and I didn't have a good camera in the boat with me. I also wasn't thinking clearly - I was in a state of shock.
The taxidermist taped out the muskie out to between 51-52", depending on how you lined the tape up with the fish. If I ever manage to catch another muskie someday, I'll definitely let it go. But I could fish a hundred years and not duplicate this experience, I think.
Here's the photos of the muskie - first was taken on my cellphone - trying to line up a shot in the midday sun on the LCD screen was hit and miss, so I apologize for teh quality. You can see the bass in the net, next to the muskie's head. The carpeting of my front casting platform ended up quite bloody - but not from the muskie. The bass had numerous severe puncture wounds on both sides. Marty let the bass go, while I dealt with the muskie.
The second photo is me with my muskie.
Edited by Cleve 9/17/2006 8:09 AM
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GREAT JOB CLEVE! GREAT STORY! Thanks for sharing! I got excited just reading it. I am sure the adrenaline rush was unbelievable! Amazing how you landed that fish!!!
Congratulations! | |
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Posts: 786
Location: Minnesota | Nice fish Cleve! While none of these pics are mine, here are some nice pics of muskies and pike taking bass, walleye, trout, etc. I would have loved to have added yours to the mix. Must have been a sight to see a 3lb bass with a muskie on it! Nice to read your story.
http://www.gruntmuskielures.com/WhyBigMuskyLures.html
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Posts: 2687
Location: Hayward, WI | Hey I think that's a pretty neat story! I wouldn't feel bad about keeping that fish. It was a legal fish so you had the right. Catch and release is a great idea, and most of us release all of our muskies, but I don't think taking one out of the system is going to do any harm. The circumstances in which you caught it make it a little more unique as well!
Way to go!
curleytail | |
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Posts: 2752
Location: Mauston, Wisconsin | Cleve- Way cool fish story, and nice fish. I would liked to have seen & heard the action in the boat during the netting process.  Don't worry, the elitist's will get over it. It was your fish to do with as you please, even grind it up into catfish chum.
Have fun!
Al
Edited by ESOX Maniac 9/17/2006 10:43 AM
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Posts: 1504
Location: Oregon | That's one heck of a fish and a great story!!
jed v. | |
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Posts: 17
| Please don't put down anyone being critical on my account. For I've seen many instances in the last 20 years where beloved fishing places have been ruined, depleted, fished out, due to fishing pressure and the "catch and kill" mentality. One of the lakes I fished in Canada for walleye used to be excellent, now it's mediocre at best. Virtually every angler keeps every walleye caught on that lake. Fishermen used to raise their eyebrows and question our sanity when we told them we catch and release walleye.
We all need to remember just how precious these resources are, and use them with the utmost respect and reverence. There's wisdom in some of those words.
Just for the record - I kept a big teen'er steelhead back in 1989 for a mount. He hangs over my desk as I type this. Subsequently, I have caught steelhead as large or even larger, and all of those were released successfully. So no, Chico, I won't be keeping any more muskie, if I'm ever even lucky enough to encounter another, even larger one someday. | |
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Posts: 2037
Location: lansing, il | my 2 cents...first of all congrats on your catch if it was a legal sized fish, caught legaly there is no law that says you cannot keep the fish and do with it what you want. if everything was done within the laws of fishing then there is nothing we can do..my only question i guess would be is it legal to keep a fish that was never hooked on a line but holding another gamefish??? with that said here is a guy who is not a musky angler, and probablly did what 90% of bass or walleye guys would do if they caught the same fish!!!!!! as musky anglers we have all been educated on the consiquences of removing that size a fish from any body of water....as well as educated on the art of repoduction.....problem is "other angler" are not aware of what we preach amongst ourselves...we bicker and fight on here all the time to each other but what about the bass and eye guys!!! or the once a year for a week anglers who get the fish of a lifetime??? what is to be done?? we represent a very very small group of anglers in the fishing world as a whole! | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Congratulations on the fish and thanks for a great story.
Everyone here understands the C&R ethic (if not, they soon will if they frequent this board!), including the author of the post, and he chose to harvest this fish as many might. He states he now regrets that decision, but it's not one to be regretful of, especially considering the circumstances. This isn't a fish most scientists would tell you should be the target of C&R education, those are the low to upper 40's fish. The entire idea of C&R in self sustaining waters AND put and take waters is to allow a fish to GET to trophy size. At that point, it's up to the individual angler whether to harvest the fish or not.
It's one thing to educate, another to 'preach' and yet another to come off like an 'elitist snob'; all three have been aired so many times here it's almost predictable. Best to avoid the second and third in the education and discussion process, especially here. It's counterproductive to be too forceful when discussing the C&R ethic no matter the amount of personal resolve or the obvious positive intent of some of the critical commentary. | |
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Location: Northern Wisconsin | he didnt have a good camera to get pics with, and he was in shock, imagine being in his place if you werent a muskie
fisherman
Edited by fish4musky1 9/17/2006 9:08 PM
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Posts: 17
| Grunt Lures - 9/17/2006 9:37 AM
Nice fish Cleve! While none of these pics are mine, here are some nice pics of muskies and pike taking bass, walleye, trout, etc. I would have loved to have added yours to the mix. Must have been a sight to see a 3lb bass with a muskie on it! Nice to read your story.
http://www.gruntmuskielures.com/WhyBigMuskyLures.html
Wow - those are some impressive photos - and some impressive lures! 16" Grunts?? Whew! I used to think a Suick Muskie Thriller was about as big as a freshwater lure got!
Just a little story about big lures for big fish - about 10-12 years ago we were fishing in the Seneca Lake outlet - I caught a 10" smallmouth bass on a crankbait. I quickly unhooked it and released it, and watched it swim towards the bottom. Suddenly a huge northern pike swam from out of nowhere and grabbed that poor bass, like a dog iwth a bone, basically the same way my muskie grabbed that much larger bass. It's hard sometimes to judge size underwater, but that pike was big - I'd guess at least the low teens. We'd been fishing in that spot for a few minutes - but obviously nothing we were throwing was of interest to that pike.
Needless to say, we beat the water to a froth with our crankbaits trying futilely to entice a strike from that big pike, or one of similar size. We caught a plentiful number of much smaller pike, but nothing in that size class. But then, come to think of it, we weren't throwing 10" plus lures either.
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Posts: 786
Location: Minnesota | Cleve,
One of the places I go for 50+ inch pike in Canada (Sprtsmans Lodge on Little Vermillion) is still owned by one of the sons. In the lodge on the wall they have a 24 inch jointed lure with a piece of an old rope still attached. I asked the owner about it and he said him and his brother used to use a row boat when they were kids and trolled it around the lake. My friends and I laughed a little while we asked if they actually caught anything on it....Of course then he told us of the fish he and his brother caught on this monster lure. Well, this year we went to his brothers place (Anglers Kingdom on Nungesser sp?) and asked him about the big lure. He told us the same story of the monsters they had pulled out of the lake with it when they were kids. They both said the only thing bad about such a large lure (besides rowing it around the lake) was that you did not catch anything small between the big boys to keep the time moving along. I should email him and ask if he can send me a picture of that lure.
James | |
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| Great fish...and I am very happy you had that opportunity. You may decide to become one of us muskie addicts as well. No one can give you a hard time about this fish. Thanks for sharing.
But one question....why did you come to our board to post? Are you familiar with this board, or just the others like it? I think we've got a super group of guys here. There is none better, and we only want the best for our beloved muskies.I'm sure you could tell, by the awesome responses of "great fish." I think Bette has a point though....we need to educate not only those new to muskies, but to ALL fisherman alike!
May your rod be bent by another 50" muskie!!! ALL OF YOU!
Donnie  | |
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