Mike Roberts of Duluth was fishing in front of his Island Lake home on Memorial Day when he caught a 51-inch muskie with a 20-inch girth. Muskie season doesn’t open until Saturday, so he released the fish after taking a few photos.
He was fishing from shore for walleyes about 8 a.m., using 6-pound-test line, a slip-sinker and a floating jig tipped with a fathead minnow. His wife shouted at him that he had something on his line.
He certainly did.
He played the fish for 20 to 30 minutes, he said, before netting it from a nearby dock. He was assisted in this effort by his wife, Bettianne.
“It went about halfway into our net,” Roberts said. “After [it turned] the net handle into something resembling a soup ladle, I grabbed the hoop and hoisted the beast out of the water.”
Muskies of that size have been caught for about the past four years on Island Lake, said Sue Chalstrom of Chaltrom’s Bait and Tackle. But not many of the people who fish for them talk about their catches, she said.
“They don’t want people to know,” she said.
Roberts said the muskie was wearing a Department of Natural Resources tag, and he sent the information on the fish to the DNR.