Fish: Musky
Size: 44"
Lure: Black Fury
Size: #5
Color: Chartreuse/Black
Angler: Tyler Hoppe
From: Sussex
Country: United States
Tyler, pictured with his dad, Jon, headed-out on their first day of fishing while on a family vacation. It was around 9:30 am on a day that would end up being around a 100 degrees and very memorable.
I had just bought Tyler his first bait casing rig and I told him to put on the #5 Black Fury on his 10 pound line with nothing but a snap-swivel. He asked; what can I catch with this? I said a lot of things. You could catch a bass, a northern or even a musky. Within a few casts he had a strike from a small northern. Tyler said, wow that was cool. A couple of casts later he caught a small bass. Tyler stated, I'm really feeling lucky! Several minutes go by with Tyler mainly just snagging weeds when all of a sudden he shouts, fish on! I watched for a while with a degree of skepticism. Then the fish surfaced and rolled. This fish is huge! Tyler panicked, I can’t do this. I said, sure you can just keep the rod tip up and tension on the line. The fish went into the weeds and started to go under the boat. I told Tyler to work the fish around the front of the boat. When the fish got to the other side, it surfaced again. I told Tyler we are going to have one chance to net this fish. You need to lead it right into the net. He said my legs are quivering. I said, so are mine, but we can do this. About five minutes later this fish was in the boat. We didn’t have a camera in the boat so we gunned it. Within a minute or two we approached our pier; we could see mom and our friend Al casually drinking coffee out on the deck. We were shouting get the camera!
We quickly took a couple of photos, measured it and released the fish. This was the start of a great and unforgettable family vacation.
Caught at: Minocqua, WI
State: Wisconsin
Country: United States
Caught On: Monday July 31, 2006
