The start of a great fish tale involving a ‘legal’ musky in Ontario

My good friend hall of fame fisherman Spence Petros is heading up to Northwest Ontario’s legendary Eagle Lake Friday morning for a week of hunting giant muskies. Sadly, if it weren’t for my current medical condition, I might have been joining him.

Oh well, thinking about Spence and Eagle Lake forces me to think about a true “fish tale.” It’s one that doesn’t have the happiest of endings, but I’ll share it with you anyway.

We launched on the main lake and headed to a common spot. Spence has been fishing Eagle for a half-century and he has plenty of secret spots, but we weren’t hitting one of those. We’d be attacking what is commonly called a “community spot.” We were fishing with Mike Zielonka, a regular fishing partner of Spence’s.

The weather was perfect and I felt confident about our chances. I joked to Spence that I was wearing my “cover shirt.” Pro fishermen wear shirts of red, yellow or bright blue if they want to get their picture placed on a magazine cover. I was teasing, of course.

I was casting a black Mepps Musky Killer off the front of the boat. The lure is the most basic of musky lures, definitely a bait for beginners. I felt a jerk on my line. I had hooked into a fish. I set the hook.

I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want anyone to get excited over my hooking a small pike. I wanted to make sure I had a good fish before I got my fellow fishermen excited. After a couple of cranks, from the feel of the pull on my line, I knew it was a musky, possibly a big one.

I alerted Spence and Mike that I had a musky on the line. They reeled their baits in, cleared the floor of the boat and put their rods away. Spence grabbed the net and Mike readied the camera. I’d fished with Mike and Spence before and the way they got ready to bring in a big fish was like a synchronized ballet.

The fish was fighting hard and surfaced about 60 feet from the boat. It was indeed a giant and my pulse quickened. I had not caught muskies in great numbers in my life.

Looking at muskies in the water, I am able to classify them as “big” and “small,” as opposed to Petros, who can tell you how big a musky is in the water down to 2 inches in length and 3 pounds in weight. He was hollering to me, “How the heck big is it?” I couldn’t answer except to say, “I think it’s really damned big.”

I kept bringing it toward the prow of the boat and it surfaced again right in front of me. Petros got a good look at the fish and hollered at me: “That’s a damn monster. Don’t do anything stupid to lose it.”

Musky fishermen consider a 50-inch fish to be a “fish of a lifetime.” In the Canadian Shield of Ontario, the legal limit for keeping a fish is 54 inches. To put this into perspective, in the year prior to our outing, no angler had caught a legal musky. That’s right, nary a 54-inch fish had been caught, which shows how rare fish of that size truly are.

My gut told me that I had a legal fish on the end of my line. Spence yelled to me: “That’s a legal fish, you know. Don’t screw this up.”

My heart was jammed up into my chest and my stomach was knotted up tight. I’d never felt like this in my life.

Oops, I’ve hit my deadline for the week. Sorry to leave you hanging, but I’ll finish my tale next week.

• Daily Herald Outdoors columnist Steve Sarley can be reached at sarfishing@yahoo.com.