I just thought it would be cool if you guys would describe
in detail what would be the perfect scenario for catching
your super-lunker of a lifetime. Like what season? what time? conditions? where? what the fight would be like? And if you have caught describe what it was like.

Since it happened this weekend this shouldn't be too hard.

I'm trolling along a weed edge on my home river. A gentle cold fall rain has just started. My brother is in the front of the boat yakkin' through the storm. Okay, he talks a lot, but he's funny so that's a good thing.

I've just caught a barely sub legal and I've had two smaller fish so we're speculating that maybe I can catch a barely legal, then the 40 inch fish I've been looking for.

My rod bends like an aspen in the wind. Line starts to rip out. I get in a good hook set and then, to be safe, another. The fish is hitting me harder than I'm hitting it. Hey maybe I've got my 40. I get the motor turned off and stand up. The fish is bull dawgin' down deep. The wind and the current take us back over the fish. There's some rapid exchanges of position as she runs around under the boat.

Finally she comes up. Simultaneous, "whoa"s when we see her.

The net's ready, but clearly is too small for the fish. After two or three runs she's ready to head to the boat. My brother gets her head in the net, levers open the gill plate and pulls her over the side. She's in the boat. A high five and some excited laughing occurs.
We've drifted into the weedbed close to shore and some cottages. We hear clapping coming from shore. A couple of cottagers have come out into the rain to see what all the fuss is about.

My brother reaches down and measures the fish. 49". He hooks his scale over the net which the fish is resting partially in and on and we lift her up. 30 lbs, but the tail of the net is resting on the floor of the boat. Later we weigh 30 lbs and it comes out 28 on the scale. So the fish goes over 30 lbs.

I take the bolt cutters and snip the two tines of the hook attached to her mouth. One drops out, the other is in the cartilage of her mouth. It pulls through with the pliers.

I lift her up and my brother snaps three quick photos. The folks on the shore line call out various comments of congratulations and disbelief; they swim in that water. I lower her into the water. I turn her upright but she already knows what she wants to do. She's outta there.

Thanksgiving weekend (for us Canadians), family for supper and a great big fish story. My brother in the boat. What beats this?

Hit 'em hard. Kmon

It would be fall, cool but not freezing or raining, overcast skies,we would be trolling and decide to cast a couple times or jig with a Fuzzy Duzzit. My dream fish would be about 60 inches and 60 pounds! She would not put up a fight, but come up right away and be netted. A few photos and put back into the water.

Here we go my dad and I would be fishing in one boat and my good fishing buddies the two Bobs in another boat. We just got done releasing a 55 incher my dad just caught, we then decide to try another spot and the Bob's take one side (within shouting distance of me)and my dad and I take the other side, and then on the second cast I get a hit by a very large musky she comes out of the water half way because she is too big, she makes some good runs, the Bobs hear my shouting and are taking pictures, she continues fighting with some good head shakes next to the boat, she makes some power dives next to the boat and then after a great ten to fifteen minute fight she is in the net. We measure her and she is 63 1/2 inches long with a 34 inch girth (reason why she is only 63 1/2 is because I have said if I catch one as big as me 64 inches I will give up musky fishing{I am vertically Challenged}), now the boat I am in has a very large live-well, we put her in it and run to the lodge which has a certfied scales and she weights an even 72 lbs. a MNR guy is there at the weighing in and Biologist Gord Pryzer checks her out and says she still has some good years left of spawning she is not as old as normally for a fish this size after thinking about it for 30 secs. I pick her, give her a big smooch and ease her back in the water and with a tear in my eye and a smile on my face watch her swim away.;)

I would be fishing, with my brother and son, a lake in Wisconsin that shall remain nameless. It would be nov. 30th and snowing with a farenheit temperature of about 20 degrees [thats football/musky weather dam it!] After a full day of casting/trolling with the run of the mill musky baits, I would break out "big daddy" the homemade slobo of all lures. She would be heaved out behind the boat, to be trolled deep and slow just as she was handcrafted to do. After a few hours, and nearing sunset...WHACK!!! the mother of muskys has bit! She heads straight down, nearly riping my strap-on rod-butt holder completely off. The vidio camera is now on and after a short battle she is landed and into the livewell. After many "HOLY COW, HOLY COW ,WHAT A SLOBO!" statements are exchanged, my private piece would return to its normal softness. We head in to get her weighed, and with a senior warden present, the big girl comes in at 75 POUNDS at which she is clubed over the head by yours truely. New world record now on its way to a taxidermist, which will also remane nameless. After the many endorsements, the real name behind EYESORE emerges.

mine is not a musky but a big northern of 45". It was last year in the summer, 26°C, no wind and burning sun. We saw some 1" signals on the depthfinder and they were all solitary fish, above 9m deep. We started to troll over it with shad-colored supershadraps and berkley frenzy divers. My buddy caught one of 39" and one of 42". About an hour later it was my turn with a 38"er. An hour later I hit into a brick wall! My St-croix 1 1/2 oz baitcaster bent to the cork and he kept banging downwards, the rodtip heading for the bottom of the lake. She made me run three times around the boat!! My mate was afraid I would run him over while doing a marathon in the alumacraft! The water was cristal clear so I could see her headshake all the time but the size was unclear until she swam by the boat, just cruising like an alligator to see who had tricked her. Only when we measured her and I had to lift her for pictures (22 pounder), did we realize what a pig that one was. I will surely never forget this one! Seeing as I'm only 22, it may be preliminary to say that this is my dream fish, but it comes close! Very close but who knows what the future has in store? I'll let you know.

My dream fish would be catching a 50 incher on a top raider while I am listening to the Cubs win game 7 of the world series!

Its raining hard and a massive Muskie follows my brown CatsTail bucktail to the boat. I swoop the figure-8 as wide as I can and she swims off. So I quickly change to a brown Shallow Raider and twitch it in front of her and she inhales it. I hammer the hooks home and she immediately starts thrashing. I slam the rod tip down deep into the water and pull her head under. She runs hard and deep. I work her back up and she takes to the air and comes down in an explosion. She finally surrenders after a half dozen more hard runs and I put her in the big net for holding. The hooks back out easily and she lays there in the water puffing, looking at me intently, wondering what I'm going to do with her. I drop the 56 inch measuring stick beside her and its not long enough. And her tail is bent! I'm by myself and there are no other boats on the lake. So there I sit with no chance of a good picture - unless I kill her. So I drop the net down below her and she just sits there looking at me. I say "Go on big girl. We'll meet another day. Then I'll get our picture together." Then I tap her tail and she starts to swim off. But, twenty feet out, she stops and turns to look back at me as if to say "Yes, we just might. But you'll have to fool me again first.". Someday Big Bertha. Someday.

I take a trip up to see Herbie, and find he is booked, so my son and I travel back to the Goon to Indian Point camp. It is Labor day weekend. The weather is warm for that time of the year, North winds and cold thermals building to the north, There is weather coming in, and soon.

We hit the water, and on the first cast, my son pops a pike over 40". I get a 49" muskie, and several pike are then caught over 35". We look at each other, and say...'Lets go get her!'

A short boat ride, and on the first cast with a Muskybuster bucktail, here she comes...lost her in july, had NO idea she was this big.

Several figure 8s, and she takes the bucktail, going away....Perfect!! Hookset...all hades breaks loose. Leaping, head shaking, tearing off drag...Finally, I feel she is beaten. I try to hand land her and she eats me for LUNCH;leaving a tooth jammed through my thumb. Away she goes again, but I beat her qiuickly this time, and reach for her jaw...my son SAMCKS me on the back of the head, and insists on netting the fish. Good thing, had a heck of a time picking her up. She was 56" plus, and girthed out to equal well over 50#, my lifetime goal. Quick photos, and away she goes........

Labor Day, 1994