Am I addicted to muskies?
I guess I'd probably have to say yeah, they're the ultimate predator.
I completely lose interest with other fish.
That's serious stuff out there.
You go in cold tow with the lake's biggest fish.
There's nothing else to fish for.
When the time comes, when that fish is ready to eat, you've got to be perfect.
You've got to perform, you've got to execute, and when you do, that's your moment, that's your fish.
You feel excited, you feel joy, but you also feel a tear and a sheer fright that this fish is going to get off the hook.
That's what drives you, that's what keeps you motivated.
You want to treat every cast like it's going to be that moment that's going to make this season.
To me, this is it right here.
You've got a neat deal going in Minnesota in general.
The way that the lakes have been stocked with muskies, especially in the metro area, Twin Cities metro area,
is you've got 15 lakes within short drive that all have trophy musky potential.
We're talking lakes that vary in size from a few hundred acres to you've got Minnetonka that's 15,000 acres.
You know, 2,500 acre lakes that are deep, clear, beautiful bodies of water that grow big fish.
We're putting people on trophy fish every year out of the metro.
Coming from being a hardcore white tail bow hunter, I get the same rush out of musky fishing as I do big game hunting.
You can share it with so many more people, you can spend so much more time on the water and that's kind of why I made that transition.
Most of us tackle manufacturers are basement builders, I mean we're at home, we're building these baits out of our house
and we're constantly trying to find the new age bait, the new way to make these fish bite, the new hottest lure.
If I didn't come out with something innovative in my own mind, there's no way I would even be doing this.
If I could go back and not catch my first musky and I would have no idea where I would be right now,
I would probably have went to business college and become some salesman or done something crazy,
but I found musky fishing and musky fishing was my way.
Hey buddy. Finally. Oh man. Yes sir.
Sometimes musky fishing can feel a lot like work and it is.
Long days, I mean you'll be fishing, you'll be casting big baits 10 hours a day and you can be hating life.
It's tough. There's some heartbreaking moments in the boat. It happens.
Especially when you've got time, you've got sweat equity, you've got so much invested in these fish in that one moment
and broke my rod. Whether it's your fault, whether it's equipment malfunction, whether it's just sheer bad luck,
when you get a big girl that comes off, it's tough. It's a tough pill to swallow and the only cure for it is catching another fish.
It's the only thing that might go away.
You dream about the upper 50s, the mid 50s, 60 inches. That's legendary stuff right there.
Those are boogieman stories right there. Those fish are in the body of the water that we're fishing.
You don't have to hop in a plane and go anywhere crazy. They're here.
They're up here in the north. They're in Minnesota. They're in Wisconsin. They're in Canada. They're in Ontario.
They're everywhere. That's what fuels us. That's what keeps us going out there.
That's it.
Once you start musky fishing and having these experiences hooking fish, missing fish, near misses, near hookups,
I mean, you'll know what we're talking about.
This sport is for adrenaline junkies. These fish will make you weak in the knees.
And the moment that it stops doing that for me, I won't be fishing for them anymore.
I want to catch a fish that makes that feeling never wear off. A super fish, a monster, something nobody's ever seen before.
I want to chase that fish. I want to catch that fish.
I don't know if that'll cure my obsession, my addiction, but it might help.
That's it.
