Sometimes, the fishing gods smile on you in the strangest ways.
Steve Safranski is a Minneapolis corporate trial lawyer who leaves little to chance in litigation or in fishing. When he started chasing muskies 11 years ago, he bought the best equipment and began making pilgrimages to the major shrines in muskiedom — Eagle Lake, Mille Lacs, the Chippewa Flowage.
Yet, his due diligence never paid off in a truly big fish — until a recent afternoon when he happened to pick up his 3-year-old daughter’s lightweight spinning rod and, hoping to hook a little northern pike for Nina to reel in, he pitched a No. 3 Mepps spinner into Wisconsin’s Lac Courte Oreilles.
Whammo — Safranski hooked the fish of a lifetime.
“When I first had this thing hooked, I felt mocked by fate,” said Safranski, 37. “Now, you give me a shot at this fish like this? This is sooo not the right time. But it was the right time.”
This was not supposed to happen on this particular fishing outing.
Safranski was fishing with his wife, Stacy; his sister-in-law, Jennifer; and little Nina. They were on a family vacation. Instead of seriously pursuing muskies on the trip, Steve decided it was time to introduce Nina to fishing. They had already caught a bucket of bluegills, which satisfied Nina just fine until she caught a 12-inch northern pike.
When the 3-year-old announced she wanted to catch more “long fish,” Safranski and his wife organized a special outing specifically to catch little northerns on light tackle for their daughter.
It was a hot afternoon, which had prompted Safranski’s muskie-fishing father and uncle to spend the day visiting the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in nearby Hayward, Wis., where visitors can walk through a giant muskie.
“How ironic is that?” Safranski said.
When he made the fateful cast with the No. 3 Mepps, he saw the giant muskie inhale the lure at boatside. Safranski knew it was a monster, and he told everyone in the boat. “This is the biggest muskie ever,” he announced.
Nina was moved to the front of the boat, so Safranski could fight the fish. Everyone went on full alert.
“It immediately went to the bottom, and at that point, my wife thought for sure I really didn’t have a fish.”
But he did. After a few scary moments in which the muskie was wrapped in weeds and Stacy had to start the boat motor and adjust the position of the boat, the long battle on lightweight tackle was nearing the end.
Then, Safranski knew it would be up to his wife to net the fish, perhaps the most critical moment in landing a monster muskie.
“The fish did get to the surface, and I thought, ‘This is our shot to get it,’ ” Safranksi said. “So, I said, ‘No matter happens, Stacy, I love you.’ ”
Why did he say that?
Like a wise husband, Safranski gave this question adequate thought.
“Because a lot of marriages might end over a bad net job. But our relationship is stronger than this fish. I wanted to give her confidence that if the fish gets away, it’s not because she screwed up. If we lose it, we lose it.”
He added: “Stacy also knows this is the biggest muskie of my life. She was there when I lost the previous big muskie of my life. That fish was lost at the net. My dad couldn’t get it in because the hook was caught on the net. It was a 45-incher. ”
With net in hand, Stacy executed a perfect landing.
Then, the lure popped out of the corner of the muskie’s mouth.
Safranski stared at the fish. It was a dandy.
The 47-inch tiger muskie was a rare naturally occurring hybrid between a northern pike and pure-strain muskie. Safranksi estimates the fish weighed around 35 pounds — truly a muskie of a lifetime. As a crowd of boats circled his boat, he released the fish, and a loud applause rose over the lake.
Nina, a bit scared by all the commotion, knew something special had happened.
“That was a really, really long fish,” she said.
When they returned to their resort, Safranski had become a hero. Pictures were sent to the local newspaper, and strangers asked him to recount the story. Locals said it was the biggest tiger muskie caught in years.
Now, it’s a world record.
The Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame recently sent Safranski a congratulatory letter stating his fish was accepted as the new catch-and-release tiger muskie record for 10-pound test line.
Safranksi said he learned three lessons from the experience:
1. Always keep your muskie net in the boat.
2. Be ready to catch a muskie, even if you’re not fishing for one.
3. And 3-year-olds make good muskie guides. “If she hadn’t wanted to go fishing that day, I would have never caught that fish. She put me on the right spot at the right time with the right lure.”
Not that there is anything wrong with little trout, but I prefer toothy critters.