As a recent client yelled out after he had just hooked into the 25th fish of the day, “Oh, my, god, we’re in the land of GIANTS".”
Giant fish have been caught, revived, and released over the last month. Some very nice fish for the river systems that we are fishing - sometimes fishermen compare fish from different bodies of water to all other fish of the same species, regardless of the body of water that it was caught in, but this is lacking some critical perspective that is necessary to see these fish for the trophies that they are.
Imagine a 15 inch brook trout from a tiny creek - that’s a monster and a huge accomplishment. However, a 15 inch brook trout from a stocked pond is not a huge accomplishment, the details and placement matter.
In our small river systems, a 20 inch smallmouth is a BEAST of a fish, and a 40+ musky is an absolute monster - now sure you could go to the Great Lakes and find larger fish, but that is a different type of success altogether.
This post is to credit some clients with some very nice fish from this summer. I am giving credit to two types of anglers - first the anglers that have caught trophy sized fish and then secondly to the anglers that have hit the challenges (of catching 3 or 5 game species in one day).
No editing tricks here - this smallmouth was 20 inches on the nose. Straight beautiful - quality catch Adam.
This fish - unfortunately did not get an official measurement… but I am including it as I KNOW it was a 20 inch bass. Grant called his spot and said “That tree is holding a fish.” He slung his topwater up to the tree and this behemoth exploded on his topwater. This is a stud smallie.
Jake caught this topwater musky on the final cast of the day - we pushed HARD for this fish and we were rewarded. This fish was holding in about one foot of water in a tiny stretch of water. Congratulations Jake!
Adam with his second appearance in this blog post - here he is with a 41.5 musky. Beauty of a fish!
Kyle here hit the hardest challenge in the UP - the Northwood’s 5 challenge with this musky. He caught a tiger musky, musky, walleye, smallmouth, and pike all in the SAME DAY and on the SAME BODY of water. Absolutely stunning.
Ryan here hit the Northwoods 5 challenge - he topped it off with this stunning walleye. He caught a walleye, musky, tiger musky, smallmouth, and pike in the same day of fishing. HUGE congrats!
As always.
Catch.
Release.
Wander.
C'est la vie.
Pura vida.
Carpe diem.