2008 Muskie Inc Tournament

Well the 2008 Muskie Inc Tourney has come and gone and what another exciting year. I had the pleasure of fishing with Brent, Jesse and Craig. This was the first time Brent had been musky fishing with Jesse and Craig having a little bit of experience. The hooks were sharpened and our excitement was high while we headed to our first spot on Friday morning. I have to admit I was a little worried with four guys casting huge lures with big hooks in one boat.

We pulled up, I handed each of them a rod and we started to cast. We had 29 hours of muskie fishing ahead of us. Right away we had a few follows and one big fish eat something about 30 feet from the boat. The guys were great casters so it took my worries away. We turned to make another pass and half way down I set the hook. I landed a 53 inch monster! We continued to fish and one hour later I hear a fish eat Brent's bait and after a short battle he landed his very first musky, 52.5 inches. We continued to fish and I explained to Brent that he caught a world class fish and he probably will never catch one bigger in his life. Not 45 minutes later I set the hook again on 46 incher. It was pretty intense at this point. Three fish in a very short amount of time. Again, we continued to fish while Brent explained and described how he saw his 52.5 incher follow for 20 feet. He didn't say a word while the fish was following! I couldn't believe it. About one our after we netted the 46 incher Brent says, "Here she comes!" and the fish smoked the topwater bait. I saw the fish as it went under the boat and thought, "Holy it's another monster!". Brent did an amazing job fighting the fish and landing the 55 inch monster. It was a the largest fish that has ever been caught in my boat! Jesse also had one fish get off and everyone had several follows through out the day. What a day!

After Day 1 Brent was in first place and I was in sixth. We got up early on Saturday morning. We started to fish and it didn't take long for several boats to move in. I couldn't believe how rude and unethical some people are. That's all I'm going to say about that. We fished super hard the whole day besides one short lunch break. I ended up catching one 35 incher and lost another. Jesse had another shot at a big fish but didn't get hooks into it.

Day 3 we knew we had to catch a fish or two to be in the top three. We fished our tales off and Craig finally had his shot. A 42 or 43 incher ate his bucktail about 20 feet from the boat. Craig had her on for a short period and gone. That was too bad because Craig worked so hard for two straight days. Not one hour later Craig had another shot and for some reason the fish got off again. I guess we had used up all of our luck in the first 4 hours. With tired shoulders, sore wrests, a few heartbreaks and four big muskies the tournament came to an end.

Brent ended up taking 8th place and I ended up in 12 place out of approximately 600 anglers. We also had the two largest fish and tied for the third largest. What a memory!

Thanks to Brent, Jesse and Craig for an awesome time.

You guys should also know if you catch a fish your name goes in a drawing for a $30,000 gift certificate to Lupient GMC. Joe, my brother, and his fishing partner Aaron decided before tournament if they catch a fish and their name gets drawn they would split the money. Well you can guess what happened, they won!