The YouTube video below is 3:43 in length, but you can fast-forward through the first 2 minutes to get right to the action. The angler in the bow is casting a bucktail, and he has a big musky follow his lure to the boat — classic musky behavior.
The angler begins to figure-8 the lure, and the musky attacks it almost immediately. As they often do, this musky begins to head-shake violently, then it goes airborne, perhaps because the reel’s drag is set so tight and the musky couldn’t swim away.
The angler in the stern tries to prep the large net as quickly as possible. As you’ll see, the bucktail gets tangled in the netting when the musky does a U-turn, and with the big fish out of the net, a bad outcome is nearly certain. Dang!
So, as a former musky guide, what Monday morning quarterback comments do I have for this close call? Sure, if the net had been extended while the guys were casting, it would’ve saved a few seconds and the net man would have been ready sooner. It might have given him the split-second he needed to plunge the hoop of the net deeper, centering the fish in the hoop and avoiding the bucktail tangling disaster.
Was the fish simply too hot to net? Sure, the longer you extend the fight, the chance increases the musky comes unhooked. This musky is hooked for 13 or 14 seconds before they attempt to net it. To this point, the muskie has made two major attempts to throw the hook — the underwater head-shaking, and the jump — but she has a lot left in the tank.
To be honest, I would have tried to net the fish at the same moment shown in the video. But I like to think that I would’ve had the net assembled prior, so I would have been in a better position to successfully capture the fish.
Live and learn!
