Muskie on the Mud

My co-workers husband was on the big lake last weekend fishing walleyes with his 4 daughters. He caught the fish of a lifetime that day. It was a 44 lb. 7 oz. 53″ muskie. He caught it on 6 lb. test line rigging for walleyes. It took him an hour to land. The fish broke his landing net at one point. He and his youngest daughter had to scoop the fish up in their arms and lift it in the boat. Talk about a monster.

As DeeZee has pointed out there are some big northerns out in the basin and there are some big muskies there too. (Last summer I had a monster try to take a 3 lb. walleye at the boat off a mud flat.) So if your out trolling cranks, don’t be surprised if you catch something a little bigger than you expected.

Good luck!

See if you can get us some pictures. That is one awesome fish. Heck see if he will post a pic and the story. I can only imgine how hectic things got with 4 little girls in the boat chasing this fish around for an hour.

I’ll see if photos are possible. I know he has some it’s just a matter of being able to get them on the website.

As for the girls they weren’t so little (16 – 22). I told his wife I was surprised he didn’t have a lot of help because I figured there would be boats following him everywhere.

His wife stopped over after my first post and informed me that if he can get all the paperwork done and the line tests out at 6 lbs. the IGFA has indicated it is a state and world class line record.

That’s it!!!
I’m throwing away my med/hvy rods, 6500 reels, 80# test Spectron line, bucktails, topwaters, and jerk baits.
If I want to catch a 40# class fish, all I need to do is go fishing for walleye with 6# test!!!
Last year the biggest fish I heard (50″ plus) was caught on a 1/8 oz jig and 1/2 a nightcrawler.
A guy just can’t win with those crazy fish..

Whoa there SteveO………..don’t hurt yourself!!!!

Hang in there buddy………….I KNOW your day will come! Persistance and frequency………….your day will come!!

Drives me crazy. Fished the Flambeau river HARD for 3 days last yr. and raised a couple of smaller fish. Threw everything in the book at them. Titanium leaders, I had it all. Get back to the cabin and I hear about this walleye guy that gets a 55″ fish on the jig/crawler combo!!!
It ain’t fair, I’m tellin’ ya…

SteveO,
There’s guy’s do this “fishing crappies” on the Apple River every year! Little crappie jigs………..catching crappies………..with a couple bonus muskie!

Like most predators, they’re opportunistic feeders and if it looks natural, they’re more likely to take it! The guy at “The Narrows” on Potato Lake swears by nothing more than a size 7 Shad Rap for Potato muskies. He said they’ll take the big lures once in a great while but you’ll catch 100 times more fish on a Shad Rap. He’s got a catch log that supports this as well.

Remember, anything’s possible……….but 6#test on the Flambeau will probably lose you a fish. I’d at least stick with heavier line.

Wow! If you can lay hands on a quality photo, send it to the website and I’ll put it on the home page! Awesome.

AWESOME STORY!!!!!

I had a similiar experience over the last weekend except I was bobber fishing at dusk and a nice sized northern broke my line boatside. This is the second year ina row when I have had a northern on in 25+ feet caught on a bobber at night on the MUD. Hmmmmmmmm.

I cant agree more with Still A Kid, sometimes the smaller baits just work better for Muskies. On Leech this year while trolling a weed line for wallyes I caught a 46″ Muskie on a #5 Shad Rap. 6lb Fireline and 20 minutes and she was released to swim again.

The fish was a pig!! I saw it when they brought it in to the Red Door. The same group got at least one over 28″ on Saturday as well – good weekend for them!!

I’m trying to get a good picture to send. At this point my options are:
1) Good picture of the fish but it’s not the fisherman holding it.
2) Good picture of the fisherman and the 4 girls but a so-so picture of the fish.

Hopefully I may have one in the next day or two that shows the fish and the fisherman.

geee I feel out of place postin on the lake side…. must be my “handle”……
anyway… I used to fish ‘skies quite a bit…. and they are truly a funny fish… frustrating many times….. I remember one lake of the woods trip where we just beat the water to a froth with regular musky tackle… and had many follows and ZERO hits… the bay we were fishing was beaten to a froth by MANY other musky anglers too… all doing about the same lots of looks zero hits…. so I had a hunch… I decided to try what I called “musky ultra-light”….. which was a heavy action spinning rod and 17# test mono….. my first “victim” was the largest fish we had zoned in on… she was a brute… a 50+” fish for sure…. I tossed a big floating rapala in where she always laid…. she followed right to the boat like a good girl…. politly waited while I did a figure 8…. then exploded ALL OVER that ‘pala… when it passed her nose…. total fight time with 30+# musky on 9″ of 17# test line… about 1 second… my buddy immediatly after it was over said “what were you using? Thread?”… could just have well of been…. but we had ACTION!… so he rigged up HIS heaviest spinning rod and we went AFTER them…. total fish landed for the day? ZERO…. total hook ups? 7…. longest time on? well, its kind of like bull riding in the rodeo… it was measured in seconds… best time was my buddy.. he held on to one for about 5 seconds…. every fish hit RIGHT at the boat…. it was VERY exciting… but also frustrating… and fairly expensive in crank baits as well….. I think the best hit of the day was when I had a fish following MY crank… and my buddy was trying to zip his crank out of the way when another 20#+ musky dashed out from under the boat and inhaled HIS crank!…. he had a 9 inch leader and was using a #7 shad… the ‘skie took is so deep it got past the leader and cut his line like he was using a razor blade… he never even felt on a tug on the line…. but we BOTH saw the hit…. since it was right next to the other fish!!!! we even had one time where we had THREE fish follow one lure!!… it was just nuts…. but ultimately futile… for every monster musky that gets landed with light line there must be another 100 that bust/cut off! its like winning the lottery!… you gots to be LUCKY….. but.. sure.. if you want to try it…. get yourself a nice long med hvy to hvy action spinning rod… you can at least use super lines now…. try some of that new spiderwire…. I would suggest 30#.. you might just be able to hang on for 10 seconds!!… but you WILL have some excitement!! those musky DO get tired of seeing big lure after big lure dragged in front of them…. they have seen it over and over and over… and they pretty much know the drill…. toss them something small…. they will probably jump on it….. good luck gentlemen… your gonna need it!

Congrats by the way Garrrison. Sounds like a nice fish. Can’t wait to see a picture.
I had a 6 fish day once up in Hayward. Smallest was 39″ and the longest was 47″. They were thin, but long. One nice thing about the heavy tackle and 80# test is that if you get a solid hookset, they ARE coming to the boat.

Garrison,

Send them all to James. This guy is great with photo editing tools, so I’m sure he can make the pictures look great.

I’ll be happy to “tune” any and all pics that make it my way. Send them to [email protected] and I’ll work my magic. Too light or too dark, doesn’t matter.

RiverEyes:

To followup with your observations, try some of the Tyger leader. I have yet to use it, but it may be something we could try tangling with those big green toothy critters and light line.

Mark

I have been able to lay my hands on some pictures. If all goes well tonight I’ll get them scanned and emailed to James so he can work his magic.

Awesome, looking forward to seeing them even if the quality isn’t perfect.

Quote:

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I have been able to lay my hands on some pictures. If all goes well tonight I’ll get them scanned and emailed to James so he can work his magic.

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This’ll be like a kid waitin’ on Christmas!!! I’ll be ANXIOUSLY awaiting the “eye candy”!!!

I sent three photos to James tonight. I’m hoping he’ll have time to post them soon.

Here’s some of the pics to follow up on this story. The photos have been sent out to us by Scott “Garrison” Maghan and I want to make a point of thanking him here for his efforts to get them to us for all to gawk at and drool over! thanks much Garrison.

The story behind this photo, I believe the location is in Tutt’s Bait shop located in Garrison MN on the west side of the lake.

This is a boyfriend of one of Ken Hunt’s daughters holding the fish. Probably the best picture of the fish there is.

Ken Hunt and family. Which one of these girls do you suppose was the brave one that helped wrestle that fish into the boat after the net gave out?!

Ken Hunt and his catch of a lifetime..!

Ken,
Congrats on your catch, hope it qualifies for a record.
I see your daughters are not camera shy?

Ken: Congratulations on your great catch. I hope this “fish of a lifetime” works out for you on the line class record. Others have said this and I agree , the next state record will come out of Mille Lacs.
Dino

I wouldn;t be camera shy either if I looked that good!! Oh Nice fish too

Great fish Ken, thanks for sharing with us all.

congrats ken, what a pig! what was the girth measurement on the fish? i caught a 53″er on the croix last august with a 23″ girth. just wondering how mine compared weight wise. i didnt have a tape with so i didnt know the length when i released her so i used some dacron line and got girth and length that way. she was a pig too. i figured she had to be all of 40# . ill post a pic when i figure out how.
congrats nice fish!!!!!!
single guy who loves to fish,
fritzy

Thought I’d post an update I just received today on this topic.

Ken’s wife informed me that his catch has been certified by IGFA as a Minnesota line class record for 6# test and a World line class record for 6#test.

Congrats, Ken!

Thats so Cool!!!
Congrats man!