Journal of a Minnesota Angler

40.5" muskie

Species: Muskie
Size: 40.5″
Lure used: sucker with quick strike rig

Date: 10/18/2008
Time: 10am-2pm
Body of water: Lost Land Lake
Location: Hayward, WI
Weather Conditions: overcast and windy

I thought I would start this blog with the biggest fish of my life. It was in Mid-October last year. My buddy, Dan, had been up in Hayward most of the summer doing a bunch of muskie fishing. We had talked about fishing together, but it wasn’t until October that we were able to hook up and get out on the water together. He and I went to Lost Land Lake to try our luck to try to get a muskie or two. Dan is a big muskie fisherman and while I like to fish for muskie, I rarely do it exclusively. I like a little more action.

Letting the monster go

But this day, we were strictly after muskie.  Dan bought three large suckers.  These fish were bigger than the fish I normally catch!  He showed me how the quick strike rig is attached and how it worked.  We put them out with large bobbers and kicked back.

Within the first ten minutes or so, the sucker under my bobber started moving.  Shortly thereafter it went under.  I set the hook as hard as I could and held on. After a fight of about 5 minutes, we netted the monster above. It was a good thing Dan got him in the net because it turned out I never actually hooked him. He was just clamped on tight. He was my first 40-plus incher and (as I mentioned earlier) the largest fish I’ve ever caught in my life!  We took some pictures and let the monster go.

Bite marks on one of our bait fish.

We tried for several more hours. I even tried casting for some bass while our suckers were out (you can have more than one line in the water in Wisconsin), but unfortunately, that was the only catch of the day.  Dan had a strike on the 5 lb sucker on his line, but he let go after a few seconds.  We can only imagine how big that muskie would have been having hit such a big bait fish!

While we only got the one fish, it was fun sitting out on the water and chewin’ the fat.  We hope to get out again next summer.