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Paul, I know you usually dont post to much about the sizes of the fish caught but I know that over the past year you have caught some monsters or have had some in your boat I was wondering what the top 5 in your boat this year were!! P.S. Check your email and let me know!!
Brandon
Rather than a run-down of the top 5, I'll cut to the chase and talk about a few of the biggest. It's with great regret that I day I was unable to put a 50#-class fish in the boat in the '09 season. But, there were still some huge muskies boated, and lots personal bests. There was a two-way tie last season for the biggest. There was a 54"X26" boated in early October, and another boated in November. With a couple fish like that in the boat last year, it says a lot about the size of the muskies in Mille Lacs that I can still whine about missing a 50-pounder. An honest 50#er is an exception fish, even for Mille Lacs, and it's unrealistic to expect fish like that to give themselves up easily, or often.
One thing that made the '09 season memorable for me was the size of the fish in the summer time. A guest caught a PB 53"X25" in early July. That fish had a crazy girth for that early in the season. There were similar fish caught in August and September. Other friends and guides shared photos of some of their fatties, too. The girth was crazy last year. Brandon, you of course remember that fish we boated together in the summer '08; they're now quite a bit fatter than that one, on average. The high forage levels of the past couple seasons has the muskies fatter and healthier than I remember. With the forage levels now beginning to drop, and given the health of the musky population, I'm expecting in the next couple seasons we'll again see some of that out-of-this-world fishing like '05-'07.
Good to hear from you Brandon. I'll talk to you soon and we'll get you in the calendar.
Paul, With 28 inches of snow on saturday and another 20 coming tonight it makes me really look forward to July. Just unheard of snowfall for Maryland. I'll try not to complain about the bugs too much and try to remember this day when I'm back on ML. Good to hear about a fatty in July, that's encouraging since I was under the impression it's more numbers than weight at that time of year. Next year it will be a combination of Northern WI and ML fishing so looking forward to throwing baits on my new Okuma to see if they like the same baits on my old haunts that I was exposed to last year. My old Mepps musky killers are barely the size of a #10 cowgirl blade. I guess that 10 year break away from the ol Esox saw a bit of change in the sport. Thanks and talk to you soon, Jim