Fish Hooked Once, Twice, Three Times

[mrmoshe]

Fish hooked once, twice, three times

Catching a 483/4-inch muskie in a lifetime is a great achievement, probably a personal best.

Catching the same muskie the next day is truly amazing.

Catching the same muskie three consecutive days is, well, somewhere beyond amazing.

Two Rockford anglers accomplished that feat this month at Lake Namakagon, located 25 miles northeast of Hayward, Wis.

Franz Olson boated the fish Oct. 12, while Gale Ekern caught it both Oct. 13 and Oct. 14.

“It’s phenomenal,” Olson said of the triple. “I would say it is extremely unusual.”

They were participating in the Worm Soakers fishing club’s fall muskie outing at Namakagon, a 3,395-acre lake.

Olson caught the fish during a practice day. Ekern boated it during the two days of competition, which he won.

Olson, fishing with Brian Johnson, caught the 27-pound muskie Thursday on a 5/8-ounce lead stand-up jighead with a plastic creature tail dressing.

They photographed the fish and released it.

On Friday, Olson and Johnson were about 300 yards from the spot where they caught the muskie when they noticed Ekern fishing there.

“I kidded Brian, saying ‘Wouldn’t that be something if they catch that fish we released yesterday,’ ” Olson said. “We kind of chuckled about it. Pretty soon I noticed they had just caught a fish.”

He told Johnson, “I bet they caught that same fish.”

Ekern took measurements and photos, which are required for the outing. He and Olson compared their photos that night, noting the fish’s scars and a distinctive notch in its dorsal fin.

“It was certainly the same fish,” Olson said.

Ekern, who used a quick-strike sucker rig, said his back-to-back catches were in the stars, or at least the moon.

He first hooked the muskie at 2:24 p.m., just minutes before Friday’s moonset. He and his boat partner Dale Engberg returned to the location Saturday for the moonset.

“We hadn’t had any luck at any other areas on the lake so I wanted to be in a spot where I knew there were fish for moonset,” Ekern said.

And, minutes before moonset, the fish hit again.

“We were virtually speechless when we pulled it into the boat,” he said.

Ekern also believed the weather was a factor. The water temperature had dipped 5 degrees in 24 hours when a wintry front stalled over the area. Air temperatures reached only the mid-30s while the lows were in the 20s.

The sudden cooldown sparked the muskie’s appetite, he said.

“For that huge body of water to drop (its temperature) that dramatically, it affected the fishing. And it had everything to do with catching this fish,” Ekern said.

[Guest Aron]

That must have been 1 hungry muskie

[Martin]

Whats a muski look like?

Cheers

[mrmoshe]

They look like this

Muskies are some of the well known breeds of sport fishes, which inhabit the waters of Canada and United States. You can find two main varieties of Muskies; there is the indigenous Muskellunge and the Tiger Muskie. A natural Muskellunge can reach great sizes, and in some instances, fishes reaching 48 inches have been recorded. Many Muskellunge in the 40 to 50 pound range are caught every year by anglers. Tiger Muskie is a highbred between a Muskellunge and a Northern Pike.

Muskie are more like Pike, more often they like to ambush their prey. They are known to be more aggressive too. Muskie will hang and loiter around rocky shoals, weedy lines, river current or deep holes and near large shoal of smaller fishes. You can catch Muskie by trolling fast with heavy line and big lures, but you can also catch many more, if you refine and retune your strategy.

Edited October 27, 2006 by MallacootaPete

[Flattieman]

Reminds me of the fastest recapture time for a flathead... three (or maybe eight) minutes after being taggged! ... I've got the statistic lying around somewhere... Might find it later...

Flattieman.

[Davemmm]

I love the Rockford files