Sometimes the worst day fishing can change in the blink of an eye. It happened for Luke King of Burnsville April 15th.
He and a buddy planned to get an early start on the day when they hauled their boat to the Little Kanawha River in Braxton County. His buddy was sick, so they didn’t get on the water until after 11:00am. Then the wind was pushing them all over the water and despite their best efforts, bites were scarce.
“We’d fished a mile or so and hadn’t seen any fish at all. The wind was blowing us everywhere,” King explained. “We came back up the river to a sheltered bend where the wind wasn’t blowing. All these fish were piled up in there.”
What appeared to have been a Dead Sea suddenly became an opportunity to select a target. Luke cast his giant tube toward the biggest fish in the bunch, attempting to cut her away from the herd.
“She followed it back to the boat and followed my figure-eight a couple of times and just sat there under the boat,” Luke explained.
Frustrated, Luke dropped his giant tube in front of her and started jigging it up and down. The tactic worked.
“She ate it and turned around to swim away and that’s when I set the hook,” he said. “She ran down river and actually turned the boat around.”
The massive fish stripped off more than 50-yards of line. Luke’s partner fired up the motor and drove to where the fish stopped and the fight was soon over with the fish stuffed into the mesh of a clearly inadequate net. The two anglers came equipped for the occasion with heavy duty tackle and durable lines and leaders.
“I hooked her in the corner of the mouth and when we netted her, the hook fell out,” he said. “It wasn’t some big story about the fight, I had her in just a couple of minutes.”
The two fishing buddies exchanged high fives and knew they had a big fish, but probably didn’t realize just how big. There was no room in the boat to stretch out the massive fish, so they stretched the tape measure the length of her body as she sat in the water by the boat. The tape stretched 53″ and the fish was still bent without a squeeze of the tail. It would have easily qualified as a new state record for the muskie for length.
“When I grabbed her by the tail my entire hand wouldn’t fit but about halfway around her tail,” laughed King. “I’ve caught some big catfish and some big muskies, but nothing that compared to her.”
King knew turning the fish back would mean he would never claim the state record for the biggest fish, but also knew keeping her for the confirmation of the record would mean a gigantic muskie filled with eggs would be lost forever. He chose to snap a few pictures and return her to the water with no hesitation or regret.
“I got pictures and I’m going to get a replica made of her. That’s all I need,” he said. “She’s still out there as far as I know.”