Fishing Report - 11.23.2023

[Scott McKee]

Well, I don't owe Bruce a Big Dirty, but he, Carrie and I were all reminded, despite our best intentions, musky fishing is a blood sport.  A dink smacked Bruce's Believer and unfortunately all three hooks of the rear treble were buried under his yap in the gills and meat.  We babysat the poor little fish trying to get it to swim away, but it was hemorrhaging badly.  It's unfortunate, but these are the risks we take musky fishing.

Scott Kitchen called me as we were preparing to resume our troll.  His voice was panicked and his words came out in rapid fire.  I interrupted him saying, "how big is the fish and where are you?"

I'll let Scott tell the whole story, but we used all 175 horses of my VMAX getting to his location as fast as we possibly could.

We didn't catch any other fish. We were out from 8:15 to 11am.  The water is off, but I think it's perfect clarity.  There were noticeably more weeds throughout the water column. The temps ranged from 45.5 to 46.5.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, team!

[John Jarosz]

Fly-fishing with Rick in the Upper, we had an easily 40"+ lazily swim by, close to the surface. It was beat up & for whatever reason, Rick thought it might have been a recent release. One eye was also poked out.
He remarked that it wasn't the first musky he'd seen with an eye out.

Is there anything that can be done to minimize damage like you had & Rick's been seeing, maybe like what many of us see?

[Scott McKee]

The best way to eliminate fishing related injuries to fish, is to simply not fish. The fish that died because of us today was gone as soon as it hit the bait. Carrie lost a fish that was hooked identically years ago, 2012 I believe. It came in dead. Treble hooks certainly don't help. Either do barbs. I can tell you with almost complete certainty barbs or no barbs, when three hook points are stuck where today's fish was stuck, the fish has very little chance of survival. I consider myself a pretty conservation minded angler, but single hooks on a trolling lure is not something I'd even entertain. If you fish for muskies, you will kill some of them. We have to do the best we possibly can unhooking, handling and releasing them.