Musky Fishing with Dad
Reading Time: 5 minutes
by Gina Stack
Learn about musky fish, the largest fish in the pike family, which takes its prey by surprise with its doglike musky teeth and pick up some fishing tips to catch this monster, including where and when to find it.
In the mid-60s, my father loved to fish for the fish of 10,000 casts: the musky. This name is short for muskellunge (Esox masquinongy), a large North American native fish that hunts the Northwoods’ fresh waters. The name comes from the Ojibwe word mashkinonge, maashkinoozhe, or maskinoše, which means “ugly pike,” “bad pike,” or “big pike.” The musky is the largest of the pike family.
Musky Fish
The musky is a cool-water fish that’s very watchful and obscure. It takes its prey by surprise, lying in wait in the cool, deep waters among logs and tall weeds, striking unsuspecting targets such as invertebrates, small perch, frogs, snakes, or even ducklings. They start eating tiny fish as soon as they’re able. Adults feed by sight in the daytime, choosing carp, trout, suckers, sunfish, perch, and minnows. Larger ones will strike muskrats and anything else that’s up to half their length, to fill their large stomachs. They monitor our lakes, helping keep the fish population at a healthy level. They can commonly reach 37 inches long, although the world record in 1949, from Hayward, Wisconsin, was 60-1/4 inches long and weighed a whopping 67 pounds 8 ounces. The 2025 catch-and-release program in Wisconsin recorded some muskies as big as 57 inches long. No wonder it’s Wisconsin’s state fish!
Musky Teeth
Its body is slightly flattened and elongated, being either brown, light silver, or green with dark vertical stripes that break into spots. Sometimes they have no markings. Their mouth is full of doglike teeth on the lower jaw and the roof of the mouth. The tongue has sharp, short teeth like a brush. They can swim at a burst speed of 30 mph, which is kind of scary for a little kid swimming at the lake we fished.
They can live in their native surroundings for 30 years, but the average is 12 to 18 years. They’re found in the north and northeast part of the U.S. and into Canada. In North America, they’re native to the Great Lakes region, as well as the Hudson Bay and St. Lawrence rivers. The river basins of the Mississippi have them too, along with some in Tennessee and the Carolinas.
The catch-and-release program helps maintain the population and prevent overfishing by ensuring they’re kept around so they can spawn. The live release program was started by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources in 2017 to encourage and support excellent fishing by mindfully returning trophy sport varieties back to the water. There are many programs for raising and stocking muskies to keep the sport alive and well. As a part of these programs, fiberglass trophy fish are made of the fishers’ catches. They’re every bit as beautiful as the real thing, while letting those big lunkers get even bigger for the next excited fisherman.
Early ways of fishing muskies were with pitchforks, heavy lines tied to low-hanging branches, shooting them with a rifle, or using fishing nets. One old fisherman would attach brush to the side of his boat, so when the musky was following a lure, it thought it was safe heading into brush and striking the lure as it got close to the boat. Not a bad idea. Some tips from this old guy were to fish for them during the day in the shade, at night after a lot of rain, and in fall when there are leaves on the water for minnows to hide in. Other anglers suggest that summer months, when the water temperatures rise, are the best time to bag the big fish, known for its forceful nature and overpowering strikes, causing an exciting encounter when the lure is hit!
Being the youngest of four girls, I got to be part of this adventure. I guess since my dad didn’t have any boys, he thought he may as well see what I could do. At around 10 years old and of small stature, my dad took me musky fishing. He handed me a large, heavy pole on which was attached a hefty lure, complete with a big mass of shiny black hair, silver spoon shapes, and massive hooks.
I was then instructed to cast it out, reel it in, and repeat. There was no casting out and watching a bobber with this fish. I remember thrusting out that huge pole and lure with my tiny arms. I can still recall the sound of the lure coming out of the water each time I reeled it in and pulled it out with all its spoons, hooks, and hair twirling and clacking together, as the water dripped off, before I cast it again.
Now I knew why my dad taught me how to cast in the backyard. I’m thankful he took the time to teach me all this.
My dad was also casting, but he had a live sucker on a line that was used to attract the elusive fish. He caught them, too! After casting what seemed like 10,000 times, he took me bobber-fishing for smaller things. It wasn’t as exciting as when I thought I was going to hook a fish as big as myself. When vacationing in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, my dad took me to the fish museum that had glass cases displaying muskies caught in tournaments around the area.
My dad caught several large muskies that we took to a taxidermist and hung on the wall. His 43-inch trophy is in my house now, as a wonderful memory. I also have a picture of my dad holding up a freshly caught musky next to me because I was the same size.
I never ate one, but they’re said to have a superb taste, with flesh that’s white and flaky. I thought they were just for the wall. There are several recipes for them, and back in the day, according to the old fisherman I read about, they ate a lot of them.
This summer we’re going to a well-known musky fishing lake, and I hope to fish for them again. My dad would be so proud if I actually landed one.
Originally published in the May/June 2026 issue of Countryside and Small Stock Journal and regularly vetted for accuracy.
