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Small bait, huge reward

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07/29/07 By Jim Lee Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers ** you do not have permission to see this link **

TOMAHAWK — On the afternoon of July 16, muskies on the Willow Flowage were feeding on nightcrawlers.

Or maybe panfish.

LeRoy Schoepke isn't sure. All he knows is while fishing for bluegills from shore, he experienced the best muskie action of his life.

"I was with my wife, Debbie," the 56-year-old Wausau angler said. "We always fish this spot this time of year. We usually catch some bluegills, and occasionally we get a walleye.

"We had caught a couple bluegills and I was bringing another one in when a big muskie grabbed it. I had it on for about 20 minutes, running up and down the shore with it.

"It leaped completely out of the water several times. That was really a pretty sight. l estimated the fish to be about 44 inches long. I lost the muskie when the fishing line got tangled around my watch and the line snapped."

Debbie was disappointed, "but I told her to forget about it," LeRoy said. "I told her, 'We aren't out here for muskies, anyway.'"

The pair went back to dangling a nightcrawler on a No. 4 hook beneath a bobber.

"We caught a couple bluegill and then a nice, 15-inch walleye," LeRoy said. "Then the bobber went down, kind of slow, just like a nice bluegill. When I set the hook, everything was solid. I told Debbie, 'I think I'm hooked on a rock.'"

When the boulder began to drift away from shore, LeRoy changed his mind.

"I used to be a muskie fisherman," he said. "I've had muskies on that I couldn't hold" in waters where fallen timber presented problems.

But this fish struck in an area of fairly clean underwater terrain, so LeRoy adjusted his game plan accordingly.

"I fought that fish about 25 minutes, going up and down the shoreline," he said. "I just took my time. The drag on my reel was set perfectly for the 10-pound-test line I was using. I had loosened the drag after hooking into the first muskie.

"The fish came to the surface several times, but it never cleared the water. It just kind of porpoised. I think it was too big and too fat to get all the way out of the water."

As the battle wore the fish down, the question of how to land the behemoth arose.

"Debbie said before we left to go fishing that we should bring a landing net, but I told her, 'We're not bringing a net because we never catch anything then,'" LeRoy said.

Fortunately, a youngster showed up carrying a net and volunteered to corral the fish.

"He was just a young kid — maybe 10 years old," LeRoy said. "The net was small, maybe big enough for walleyes. He started to net the fish from the tail end and I told him, 'No! No! No! You've got to get the head in first.'

"He only got about a quarter of the fish in the net … and he couldn't pull it to shore because it was so heavy. Then he slipped on a rock and fell into the water. I had to fish them both out.

"The boy was just shaking. He laid there on the shore looking at the fish for about 3 minutes — without saying a thing — like he was in shock."

The big muskie measured 51 inches in length.

"It was hooked just right … on the side of the mouth where it couldn't get at the line with its teeth," LeRoy said.

"A guy came along who had a scale. It was kind of an old scale, but he said it was accurate. I lifted the fish and he read the scale. He said the muskie weighed about 44 pounds."

A taxidermist's scale later put the weight at 42 pounds.

And that's how a shore-bound panfisherman landed one of the largest muskies taken in Wisconsin by a sports angler this year.

"I took a Monday off to go fishing, and it paid off," LeRoy said. "It must have been my day."

But his fishing fortunes hadn't run their course. A couple days later, he hooked a 35-inch muskie and 20-inch smallmouth bass while casting a jig tipped with a nightcrawler.

"When I was fishing for muskies, I'd go days without even raising a fish," LeRoy said. "Now this … three muskies in four days while fishing panfish.

"I'm going back for a fourth one. We'll see what happens. Who knows?"