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Posts: 2279
Location: Chisholm, MN | I was out fishing on Saturday and noticed a boat coming down the middle of the lake trolling open water. Maybe 2 minutes after they started I heard some women hootin and hollarin so I turned to look and saw they were fighting a fish about 200 yards away from us. I didn't think much of it but maybe a little jealousy but thought good for them anyway. We fished a couple more minutes through the spot and they were still freaking out and so I gave it a closer look and couldn't see a net over the side of the boat. I immediately knew that this fish was in trouble and I needed to help. We quickly blasted over to them and upon arrival I saw they had the fish in a small junk net in the boat while a woman was stepping on the fish to hold it down while a man was doing his best to try and unhook the fish. I jumped into action and told them to immediately put the fish back in the water or it will die. At that point I figured it would be too late but I had to try. They agreed. I said if you don't mind I'd like to take over from here so you don't kill this fish and they were definitely ok with it. They knew they were in over their heads at this point. I cut all the hooks out of the fish and transferred it to my net to let it recover for a little bit. Meanwhile I lectured them heavily on how to take care of a musky and you cannot fish for them without the proper tools. They didn't have pliers, hook cutters, net or a bump board. They were pretty agreeable and at this point I didn't want to take away from their excitement. This woman was still very pleased that she caught a musky so I was trying to be as nice as possible but you know...watching a fish suffer is hard. But I held my composer. The fish seemed to be doing pretty well surprisingly so I pulled out my bump board and showed them how to properly measure and hold the fish for a picture. At this point in my season I haven't even taken a fish out of the net for a picture but I figured this would be a good learning experience for them. We had the fish out for about 20 seconds and she put it back in the water. I showed them how to hold the tail and let it recover. After maybe a minute it started getting a little squirrely so I gave it a gentle push back down to the depths. It stayed down! Hopefully it survived!. It ended up being a 42 inch fish.
I just wanted to tell this story so you can all keep your head on a swivel while out there so you can maybe save a fish from what would have been certain death. |
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Posts: 1971
| Siimilar experience a few weeks ago.. One big difference - the group didn't want help, they wanted supper.. always fun to watch someone fold a fat 45" fish into a igloo cooler 
Edited by IAJustin 6/26/2023 3:47 PM
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Posts: 1670
| Are we sure fish suffer? If they do is it only when they are handled improperly? Do we think they suffer with a mouthful of treble hooks and maybe another stuck in their side?
Kudo's for helping out. |
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Posts: 1192
| About 15 years ago I watched a guy shore fishing here in Colorado and catch a 30" Tiger (the legal size is 36") and walk it up and down the shore for 20 minutes showing the whole world before he let it go. We were in a boat. My buddy talked to him when we went in for a potty stop. He was fishing for Trout. |
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Posts: 386
| Way to keep your cool and help them out. Even if that fish doesn't make it, a future one may. If they only get a pliers it'll help a fish or two live and possibly save their digits! |
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Posts: 489
Location: NW WI | Good on you, thats tough. Education is where everything begins. Never had to do that myself with a fish. But I've banged heads and exchanged strong words with nimrods trying to unsuccessfully power load at launches before.
Edited by 7.62xJay 6/27/2023 12:38 AM
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Posts: 309
Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | Yes, great thing to do. Most likely you saved that fish and hopefully that education will carry forward to others in their circle. |
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Posts: 103
| Sounds like you may have saved a muskie. Props for attemping and succeeding. Some people don't like to accept help or education. A 42 inch fish isn't a legal harvest where I am, so keeping one is poaching. |
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Posts: 105
Location: Alberta Canada | Variations of this story with every species sadly play out all the time do to lack of education or they just straight up don’t care.
Good on you for helping them out and keeping cool about it
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Posts: 772
Location: Delavan, WI | I have a similar story years ago i was fishing Eagle river chain and saw a pontoon boat hook into a musky on spinning gear they were walleye fishing so of course didn't have a proper size net, i was pretty close so saw all the commotion going on and quickly motored over and offered to help they accepted as I had all the proper gear - large net, pliers, bump board etc. I netted the fish and showed them how to hold it proper, took pics and talked them into releasing it , the people on board were willing except a young boy kept saying Dad can we keep it, I explained that it would be be very expensive to mount it and if they wanted to hang something on the wall a nice replica is the way to go, the boy was very disappointed, but the fish got to live i think it was around 43 maybe 43.5 this happened over 10 years ago, so im a little fuzzy on exact size, but good thing I was there.
Edited by muskymartin67 6/27/2023 12:05 PM
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Posts: 2279
Location: Chisholm, MN | Brian Hoffies - 6/26/2023 6:11 PM
Are we sure fish suffer? If they do is it only when they are handled improperly? Do we think they suffer with a mouthful of treble hooks and maybe another stuck in their side?
Kudo's for helping out.
Yeah not really the point of the story. Just wanted to hare a success story and like others have said, an education opportunity. |
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Posts: 94
| IAJustin - 6/26/2023 3:44 PM
Siimilar experience a few weeks ago.. One big difference - the group didn't want help, they wanted supper.. always fun to watch someone fold a fat 45" fish into a igloo cooler :(
Who.
Eats.
Musky.
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Posts: 432
| bloatlord - 6/27/2023 2:09 PM
IAJustin - 6/26/2023 3:44 PM
Siimilar experience a few weeks ago.. One big difference - the group didn't want help, they wanted supper.. always fun to watch someone fold a fat 45" fish into a igloo cooler :(
Who.
Eats.
Musky.
Folks with a mercury deficiency. |
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Posts: 1186
| IAJustin - 6/26/2023 3:44 PM
Siimilar experience a few weeks ago.. One big difference - the group didn't want help, they wanted supper.. always fun to watch someone fold a fat 45" fish into a igloo cooler :(
I'm assuming wherever this was, it was a legal take. If not, I assume you called TIPs. |
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Posts: 8719
| Most anglers can't identify a musky, much less know how easy it is to stress and kill them, how long they take to reach legal size, or what sort of contaminants are probably found in the tissues of that fish. I've found that most folks are open to a little education, and help in cases like Kirby's. No net, no tools, fishing for whatever else... As long as you're nice about it people are usually glad to know. The ones with a musky on a stringer planning on going home and feeding it to their kids? You might mention it would be better off feeding them a thermometer but that's probably a lost cause. |
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Posts: 611
Location: Seymour, WI | Good job Kirby! Good story.
I have seen very poor musky handling even from guys who were fishing in a musky tournament.
Fish are wild animals and it takes experience to be able to release them properly. |
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Posts: 267
| Good job Kirby! I had a similar frantic situation occurring near me one evening while I was walleye fishing. A couple in a pontoon trolled past me and hooked a northern pike. As they drifted away in the wind with the fish in the net, there was sudden commotion. Soon they were chugging back to me. And I promply helped them release,.......the woman from the lure in her finger. LOL. Easy job, the hook went all the way through so all I had to do was trim the point and barb off and back it out. |
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Posts: 54
| Years ago my best friend in Indiana were fishing Webster. I kept watching this boat and I knew the got a Muskie. I told my buddy something is wrong, that fish has been out of the water for a long time. So we motored over there and saw the guy holding the fish down with the lure in it's mouth attached to his wife's hand. My buddy jumped in the boat with cutters, the wife looked like she was going to pass out. He cut the hook and got her loose and got the fish back in the water. He told her I can get that out for you, she gave us that look, like you guy's are a couple of bums. So they left and went to the hosptial. Later on when we were at the launch leaving, we ran into them and she said I wished I let you guys take that out! My buddy was the most happy go lucky guy you could meet. He'd tell you one joke after another until your side was killing you. God I miss him, he commited suicide during Covid |
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