3 replies to this topic

[tangledline]

One that didn't get away
Dale MacNair reels in world's second-largest muskie near Gananoque
Posted By DOUG GRAHAM, WHIG-STANDARD SPORTS REPORTER
Posted 2 days ago


Muskie Canada officials will be in Gananoque today to recognize a world record muskellunge hooked by an Ottawa angler last November.

The 65-pound female muskie - 57 inches in length and with a girth of 33 inches - was caught and released by Dale MacNair.

Renowned muskie historian and former president of Muskie Inc., Larry Ramsell of Hayward, Wisc., has authenticated MacNair's fish, caught on the famous Forty Acre Shoal on the St. Lawrence River, east of Gananoque.

While MacNair's muskie is four pounds shy of the world record 69-pounder caught by Canadian Ken O'Brien in 1988, it will go into Freshwater Fishing's record book in the live-release category.

MacNair, who was trolling with Gananoque muskie fisherman Sal Rotolo,

said that's the only record he was interested in.

"I don't believe you need to kill a fish to get a world record. That's the way I was brought up," said MacNair, the son of an ocean fisheries employee from Charlo, N. B.

While he has fished all his life, catching salmon in New Brunswick and trout in Great Slave Lake, MacNair didn't catch his first muskie until 2007 while fishing on the Ottawa River.

He said he was hooked immediately on pursuing muskie, regarded as the king of freshwater fish. MacNair and his girlfriend, Julie Cashaback, met up with Rotolo in early November for a muskie fishing outing planned around, MacNair said, the period "of a new moon."

MacNair tangled with the big fish in the late afternoon of Nov. 28, just 18 days before the muskie season closed.

He recalls the day with vivid clarity. There were three rods set up, flat-lining at various distances behind the boat and with Jake lures ranging from eight inches to 14 inches. MacNair's line was trolling the furthest behind the boat, some 195 feet, and his black-perch colour lure was at a depth of around 17 feet when his rod bent with a strike.I grabbed the rod and I began reeling in and then the line goes limp. I yelled out, 'I lost her, she's gone,' " Mac-Nair said.

He kept reeling in the line and looked up to see why he was picking up slack line so quickly.

"There it was, a muskie that size coming with a full head of steam right at us," MacNair said.

"It was an unbelievable sight. Fiftyseven inches of fish came completely out of the water. That's when I knew we had a monster."

While captain Rotolo kept the boat away from a shoal, MacNair's girlfriend handled the net - until the muskie appeared alongside the boat and upon seeing its monster size, Cashaback switched positions with Rotolo.

"The muskie came in length-wise to the boat and seeing that sent shivers down my back," MacNair said.

"She just came right into the net. There was one treble hook in the front lip. No blood. No scars. She was a perfectly clean fish."

Rotolo, who has fished muskies for more than 30 years, said the reason the battle lasted less than five minutes had more to do with the time of the year. The metabolism of the fish slows down in cold water.

"It would be a different ball game if that fish was caught in August," Rotolo said.

MacNair said the fish was measured and re-measured , pictures were quickly snapped and, in a matter of minutes, the muskie was back in the St. Lawrence.

MacNair said he has no regrets about the live release. He calls the media attention he is receiving "pretty crazy."

"When the phone goes I normally answer it 'Muskie Centre,' " MacNair said.

His upcoming schedule will include sportsman show stops -the first one was 12 days ago in Chicago -in Milwaukee and Ohio and in Ontario at the Toronto Sportsman Show, Muskie Odyssey in St. Catharines and the Ottawa outdoors show.

At today's ceremony at the Gananoque Chamber of Commerce, MacNair will be presented with a taxidermist's replica of his muskie. Lax Reproductions of Wisconsin created the replica.

"I saw it when I was down in Chicago. Lax did a phenomenal job on it. When I saw it I lived that day all over again," MacNair said.

[balapickerel]

that would be an amazing fish to catch or even see get caught!

[YAWN]

Good on him for C&R a true fishermen!

[David Kearney]

Nice storey I hope we can get into something even close to 1/2 that this year...myself have only caught Pike no Muskie yet, although I know Tangledline has had a large Muskie or 2 on in his days. Man keep the storeys coming!!