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Posts: 561
Location: Monee, Illinois | Big fish puts the hurt on little boy
Bite wounds take 11 stitches to close
BY SAM COOK
Duluth News Tribune
One moment, 11-year-old Mason DeRosier was hunting frogs. The next, he was fish bait.
Mason and his sister Katelyn, 9, were wading in about a foot of water on Island Lake, near Moose Lake, Minn., when he was attacked by a muskellunge or a northern pike. The resulting lacerations required 11 stitches.
Both kids are from Silver Bay, Minn., and were at a family cabin on Island Lake when the incident occurred about 5 p.m. Thursday.
Mason's father, Richard DeRosier, was in a paddleboat just offshore and witnessed the event.
"I was facing them, and I see a hell of a swirl," said DeRosier, a Lake County deputy sheriff. "Before I can say, 'Holy moly! Look at that!,' all of a sudden the swirl is by their feet."
Mason said he saw the original swirl just offshore.
"It was like maybe 5 feet in front of us," Mason said. "Then, it splashed right at my foot and bit me. It hurt."
The fish didn't let go immediately.
"I smacked it in the head and tried to pry it off my foot," Mason said. "He let go, but he bit my hand."
Both children were screaming throughout the incident, their father said. Katelyn wasn't bitten.
Mason was taken in his grandfather's motorboat back to the cabin, where he washed his wounds. Then he was off to the hospital emergency room in Moose Lake. He received eight stitches in his left hand and three in the bottom of his right foot. He has numerous other bite marks across the top of his foot, his dad said.
"I'll bet he has 20 cuts on his foot and 10 cuts on his hand," Richard DeRosier said.
Nobody got a good look at the fish. Island Lake, just across Interstate 35 from Sand Lake in Pine County, has muskies and northern pike, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Either species would be capable of inflicting the kind of wounds Mason suffered.
Because Mason's foot hurts too much to walk on, the family decided to postpone a planned trip to Valleyfair.
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Posts: 20281
Location: oswego, il | I was up on vermillion when that happened and the resort owner gave me the paper to read. It happens but very rarely. They are not attacking people but movement of a body part. My suggestion is to not paint your hands and feet in a perch pattern before going out swimming. |
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Posts: 425
Location: Elkhart, IN | ToddM - 9/1/2004 9:09 PM
I was up on vermillion when that happened and the resort owner gave me the paper to read. It happens but very rarely. They are not attacking people but movement of a body part. My suggestion is to not paint your hands and feet in a perch pattern before going out swimming.
LOL, how about firetiger  |
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Posts: 2061
Location: Belgium | now who said it was safe to tattoo a pike or musky on your body? LOL!! |
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Posts: 1769
Location: Algonquin, ILL | Now some clowns will use this as an argument against further stocking and muskie management programs
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Posts: 2091
Location: Stevens Point, WI | About 15 years ago my cousin was dangling her feet off the dock on Big St. Germain and a very large muskie chomped her foot and she needed stitches. Of course my uncle being the muskie nut grabbed his rod and casted out a Tallywacker before checking on my screaming cousin. He estimated the fish in the upper 40's. |
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| What color clothes was he wearing? |
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