Heath - 2nd Largest fish to date. 41 1/2 Inch. Tag # 1259
Rommel's largest fish to date caught Nov 6th 1998 ( 48 inch Tag # 1260)
I came up Friday morning and I was on the water by 9:15 am. Mother Nature presented me
with cold and windy conditions (-4C) that held up for most of the day. I relieved my
frozen hands by changing tactics from casting to trolling. After four hours of trolling
big crankbaits and spinnerbaits (periodically casting) I found my self fishless and very
frustrated. I was ready to call it a day when my luck dramatically changed and at 1:20 P.M
"YA BABY ! " a fish was on. I was long lining a Magnum Grim Reaper Spinnerbait tipped with a 6" power grub in
12 to 13 ft of water, when the big girl hit. She hit so hard that it almost ripped my
DownEast Salty rod holder from its mounted position (I was very lucky) just before my
Calcutta400 started screaming. I quickly grabbed the rod and started bringing her to the
boat. I could feel it was a good fish with heavy headshakes pumping on the end of the rod.
She was pretty calm until she surfaced and saw the boat, then all hell broke loose.
Running, diving, twisting and rolling, she did every thing in her power to get loose. The
65lb Power Pro line held up and after two to three good runs, I had the Buckhorn beauty at
boatside. I hit my free spool and as I reached down to hand land her, she took another
run. She dove down deep and peeled off about 20 ft of line to the point I was not able to
see her. I thought to myself "I'm going to loose this fish" .I regained control
and had her once again to the boat, this time she was a bit more cooperative. I carefully
grabbed her and quickly removed the single No.6 hook from the corner of her month. I held
her in the water until a nearby muskie boat, that watch from 30 ft away, worked their way
over. After quickly measuring (48 inches) and tagging her, she was back in the water. It
did not take long for her to disappear into the frigate waters. I was fortunate to have a
boat in the area to share this great moment. They also took a few nice snap shots. (Thanks
guys) >My partner came up later on that night. We fished Sat. and Sun. (approx. 15 hrs). I
raised two fish casting the same spinnerbait but that was all. We’ll be back next
weekend. That’s for sure. My partner and I have participated in a tagging program that covers
the Tri-Lakes. If you fish this area and do catch a tagged fish we encourage you to record
the tag, date, length, location and report it to the corresponding phone number on the tag
(705-738-3112). You may have to scrape the green algae that builds up on the tag to read
it. Our boat has tagged 54 muskies this season and have re-caught 3 fish. I will elaborate
more when I get total results. Good luck on the water Rommel Misa 