"Steve S" said:
Congrats Chad, that is a true Burley Girl. Did you happen to get a girth?

I did not get what I feel was a good girth measurement. We were more concerned about getting the fish back.

But I will say this… Marc boats hundreds and hundreds of fish every season. He typically boats over 40 fish in a season that exceed 50 inches. Marc is conservative in how he measures fish in that he does not pinch tails. So when he says 50, it is 50… From my observations, he usually calls fish shorter than what i would. When I got my 53.5 the first itme out, he called it 53, and i was seeing 53.5 with no tail pinch. So for me theat fish would likely be 54 on a board with the tail pinched. Same thing happend with the 54.5 the next trip out. He calls it 54, mike and I were seeing 55, so with a tail pinch on a board, I am pretty sure the fish would be a solid 55. With this fish, I am comfortable that it was a solid 57 as i had the jaw at zero, and marc called it 57 two seperate times.

As for girth measurements… This is what I find very interesting… I would say very few people see as many fifties in a season as Marc. In all his years of girthing fish from the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa, he has never girthed a fish larger than 27". In the summer nearly all of the fish that exceed 50" range in girth from 20 to 23. If a fish girths over 23, it is an anomollie. I believe it was last year, he got a long fish that girthed 26, which he said was a freak. All of his girth measurements are done on the fish in the water. He states that girthing a fish out of the water will add as much as 2 inches to the girth due to the skin stretching. I may experiment with this a bit on larger fish that come in my boat…

With this many data points on big fish, it really makes you think doesn't it? Sounds to me like these rivers do not produce the girths that many other trohy waters do, or people are taking some serious liberties when they state girths on fish.

What I see is these fish are much more muscular than fish from LSC for sure. Perhaps this applies to other bodies of water as well. These fish from Ottawa especially just seem dense. You don't get the belly drooping over your hand because they are so solid.

Marc says to this day, he cannot say for certain that he has had a true 50 pound fish in his boat. There have been a few that by the measurements should hit that mak, but only a few. He said my fish was "conservatively 43-44 pounds, maybe a little more". As "normal seasons go, this will probably be one of the top 2 or 3 fish in his boat this year. With something like 200 days on the water, I feel extremely lucky…

All I know, is that it was a special day… The weather, the setting, the structure, the feeling in the air, how the fish hit and fought, my strain lifting her from the net, the size of her head, the cradle measurement, and watching her tail flip as she went down… It will be vivid in my mind for many years to come.

It was a privelage for certain. I only hope I have the opportunity to see such a rare fish again some day.

Updated with final pics from the trip. Thanks again guys.

In short, to keep the people away… If you look at MI log, there are very few fish registered from Ottawa or St. Lawrence. There are a total of about 5 guides, and only 2 hard core, who fish ~200 miles of river. There is a Muskies Canada contingent comprised of maybe 60 members for that area, and only about 20% are avid anglers. There is not much pressure, and the guides want to keep it that way.

It is really a very special place… Big fish, and not many anglers… The points mean nothing to me, so I really don't care.