The Fish of a Lifetime

After a couple of years fishing Deer Bay Reach we did learn where the fish were and it seemed like every trip produced more fish than the previous year. We did catch fish using artificial lures but it was still the worm harness that produced better results. Normally we started the day trolling with the harness, and if it didn’t produce we knew we were in for a long day.

One morning we had just started fishing and were trolling off a point. I had a hit that felt like a snag, just a steady pull. My reaction was to pull up as though I was making a hookset to dislodge the hook. After I did that something took off and line peeled off the reel. After a minute or two of running, the fish finally came to the surface and thrashed around. It was clearly the biggest muskie we had ever hooked. I glanced behind me and my father already had the net ready, lesson learned from the largemouth bass episode. The fish made one more run and it was done. I guided it to the side of the boat and it was nothing but net. Fish landed.

Once in the boat we realized not only was it the biggest fish we ever caught, but in the five years we had been coming to this area we never saw anyone else catch one that big. In an era before catch and release we decided to keep the fish, have it measured and weighed, and then mounted.

We drove to the marina where it was measured. It came in at 48” and weighed 28 pounds. When the owner of the marina asked what I caught it on I said “a worm harness”. His rely was “That’s OK. You don’t really have to tell me”. He didn’t believe a worm harness could have caught such a fish.

We didn’t know that the marina sponsored a contest where the biggest muskie of the year won a small prize. At the end of the season we received a package in the mail. The muskie we landed was the largest in the area, and the prize was a set of six Carling beer glasses, which I still have and use.

Little did I know but that muskie would be one of the last fish I would catch for 40 years. Other than an attempt at ice fishing in college, where I caught nothing but a cold, I would not wet a line until 2011.

Go out and fool a fish!