Dan and Scott Stevenson, two brothers from South Shore, Kentucky, are die-hard muskie men. They’ve fished Canada’s well-known Lake Manitou in southern Ontario for three decades.
And they know the famed and sprawling 40-square-mile muskie lake well. The pair of retirees had caught smaller muskies during a trip in the first week of August, including a 45-incher for Scott.
A Good Spot Pays Off Again
“One morning just before noon, we were setting up a trolling pass near a good reef where we’d caught nice muskies previously,” Dan told Wired2fish. “We were in my AlumaCraft boat going as slow as my big 150-horsepower outboard would push us.
“I made a wide turn over open water to make a pass by the reef, and Scott’s black-and-silver Buchertail 700 got crushed by a big muskie. The water was pretty deep, well over 20 feet.”
The fish hit 100 yards from the prime fishing spot on the reef.
“It was way off the reef in open water,” Scott explained. “The reef comes up to 22 feet, and that’s the best place. All around it the air-clear water is 40 to 60 feet deep, and that’s where the fish struck — same place I caught a good one there years ago.”
Battling a Monster Muskie
Scott battled the big muskie with plug tackle, plus a Shimano 400 bait-casting reel spooled with braided line and a heavy fluorocarbon leader.
“The fish came close early in the fight and we could see it only had one hook of a treble in its nose,” Scott explained. “We know what happens too often with big muskies, so Dan played it carefully. We knew it was the biggest muskie he’d ever hooked.”
The toothy fish made several strong runs, pulling drag against Dan’s reel. But, finally, he drew it close. Scott netted it and brought the muskie aboard their boat.
“As soon as I got the fish in the boat, the hook came right out of its nose while it was still in the net,” said Scott. “We were really lucky.”
Releasing the Beast, Then Going Back for More
Scott quickly measured the muskie at 51.5 inches from nose tip to tail. He took a few photos of Dan holding the thick-bodied fish, then Scott carefully released it.
“It kicked its tail hard and headed straight to the bottom,” explained Dan, a retired pharmacist. “It’s Scott’s biggest muskie ever, one heck of a fish.”
They have no plans of having a replica mount made of Scott’s giant muskie. They returned to muskie fishing that day after their big fish, which is when Scott caught a 34-inch muskie.
Scott’s 51.5-inch muskie equates to at least a 40-pound fish, according to calculation formulas often used to convert fish length to weight. But Scott’s fish was remarkably thick in the body and stomach, so could have weighed even more.
“It was a great fish for Scott to have as his personal best muskie,” Dan said. “He always uses that black Buchertail lure. And after that fish, I don’t think he’ll ever cast or troll anything else for them.”
