For a few years I traveled way up to northern Minnesota for musky fishing. This year local lake temperatures have been in the 80s and even upper 80s spelling almost death when trying to release a musky. For that reason, it’s a 30-year low for me as to the amount of time on the water chasing muskies. The decision has been an easy one because I can’t catch ‘em next year if you I kill ‘em this year.  

Fortunately for me, this year’s musky fishing trip came at exactly the right time. I traveled to the Kenora region of Canada where all water seems to originate from the vastness of Lake of the Woods.  An interesting note about that is even as huge as that water system is, surface temperatures were still in the high 70s but thankfully trended down the entire time I was there. 

My net man for the trip was Ricky. He’s a reliable first mate and handles a musky rod and reel, as well as a dip net, with confidence. He’s also great company, which is extremely important when spending 10 or 12 hours a day together within the confines of a fishing boat. As the days wore on, the trip really became more his story so that will be the focus going forward.

How many gigantic fish stories have you heard in your lifetime that end with the big one that got away? Well, one of the first fish encounters we had ended like that, almost. I think it was on the second day of the trip when we were fishing a weedy half bay. The sun was bright, the sky was blue, and the fish were active. It was the kind of day you picture in your head while waiting all year long to get to Canadian musky water.

In the middle of some rare boat silence Ricky uttered the words that all musky partners want to hear: FISH, FISH! Typically when those words are heard, a type of chaos breaks out. In this situation a quick assessment of the fish battle told me that I wouldn’t have time to even reel in my own line because the fish fight was already at boat side. I dropped my rod, grabbed the net, and raced to get into position.

While I was doing that, Ricky was trying to control the fight, but the fish was so big it went wherever it wanted to go. When I saw the fish for myself, I could see why. It was a monster! It was the kind of fish that you picture in your head while waiting all year long to get to Canadian musky water.

I reached out with the dipnet almost to the point of falling out of the boat and that’s when the unthinkable happened: the hooks of Ricky’s bucktail pulled free and shot back at him. This was in mid dip and for a fraction of a second it was a coin flip on whether or not the fish would fall into the dipnet or back into the lake. Even with my front row view I wasn’t sure what happened. When I raised the net the fish was in it and we both howled like little kids. It was the biggest fish Ricky ever caught, measuring just over 50 inches long and weighing an estimated 40 pounds. It felt like we had captured lightning in a bottle. It was so exciting!

On the last night of the trip, we found ourselves in the exact same position. Ricky set the hook on another huge fish and it appeared that he was on his way to an even bigger personal best. Exactly like the fish caught earlier, it was slowly easing towards us. I was leaning over the side of the boat to get the net under the fish. To quote the great Yogi Berra: “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”

A nano second before the gigantic fish was about to slip into the net, the hooks pulled free. When the dip net came up empty, we both agreed that the fish was just as big or bigger than the one caught earlier in the trip. That’s when it officially became another heartbreaking story about the big one that got away. 

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