59 Inch Monster - PRO is closing - MI vs. Sharpshooting

 

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The Window is Closing!

Just a quick reminder....

Registration for Musky Insider PRO is closing Monday night (August 19th) at 11:59pm CST! 

This is your last chance to get in before we raise the price.

[CLICK HERE TO JOIN NOW]

Our upcoming Live Q&A sessions in August and September will include MN guide Kevin Cochran, Canadian guide John Anderson, and Lake St. Claire guide Spencer Berman.

 

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59” Beast of the East

Check out the beautiful paint job on this absolute leviathan that lunched a Bluewater Baits Gongshow.

That’s Cole Cartmel with an astounding 59”x25.5” beast caught out east with guide Jean Laprise who guides out of the Ottawa Musky Shop .

If 50”’ is the fish of a lifetime, how many lifetimes is a 59” worth!? 🤯

Here’s a few words from Jean’s recent Facebook post about the catch.

“A few weeks ago my client now friend booked me for 5 days. Last year Cole Cartmel had booked me for 3 days and we grinded and ended up skunking although he dropped a big one boat side.”

“This year Cole came back knowing what to expect, knowing we are musky fishing. Knowing we could skunk. I'm so happy you had faith in me, because what a trip this worked out to be.”

“The beauty of this story was we watched that video that surfaced this week of a monster musky chasing a glide. We spoke about how huge and insanely big it was. Knowing how surreal this was.”

“Cole, I'm super proud of you for landing a fish of a billion casts. Congrats!”

For perspective, Jean reminds us of this . . . 

“Just so you understand how huge this fish was picture a 40 incher beside a 50 incher.”

Congrats to Cole and Jean on an amazing catch! Sounds like they popped a couple other fifties on this trip as well.🔥

 

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Insider PRO Instructor Tops LSC Tourney Field

Congrats to Musky Insider PRO instructor Spencer Berman and his teammates (Dr. Aarron Ruter, Ryan Fields, and Kyle Savino) on becoming the first ever casting boat to win the 4th Annual Freedom Tournament - LSC on Lake St. Clair.

This tournament is primarily a trolling event between big boat trollers, however it is unique in that it does encourage casters to participate and limits trollers to only 8 rods per boat. The tournament is a competition for the total inches of your two biggest fish and is all catch photo release.

This year’s event was made even more challenging with a wind and small craft advisory for Saturday and sustained heavy winds Sunday.

The weather prediction ended up making Spencer’s boat the only casting boat in the event willing to battle the waves.

Here’s how Spencer and his team pulled it off . . .

“Going into the tournament I had been lucky enough to stumble into a nice pod of fish in a specific area pulling several 50+ inch fish in the days leading up to the event.”

“Unfortunately, I knew the wind was going to make this area nearly impossible to fish. On Saturday we started there and got only one 42-inch fish before the wind picked up and dirtied the water."

“After this we took a brutal lake tour checking out several other key areas and taking a beating the whole way. After having zero action for ten and a half hours of fishing we made a long run across the lake to check out another big fish area and luckily it was the ticket!"

“Just before the 5 PM moon phase we landed a beautiful 49 7/8 inch tanker. We then landed a couple other smaller fish but not the one we needed. About five minutes off the peak moon the monster struck. Long time client and friend Aaron Keith hooked up and immediately called out that it was a big one. After a short but stressful fight in three foot plus chop, we were looking down at a 51.5 inch beauty in the net.”

“Both of those big ones were caught working Medusas with the XXXH Musky Innovations Rods ."

That one brought their two fish total up to 101.25 inches. They boated several others up to 49, but nothing big enough to bump up their total. But the 101.25 inches was enough to take home the hardware. 🏆

We are looking forward to Spencer’s Musky Insider PRO  Live Q&A session on September 26th.

If you're still kickin’ the tires on Insider PRO. Be sure to watch our video explaining everything that’s included. 

But for most of you, the Thorne Brothers discount alone should more than cover the price of admission.

 

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Muskies Inc. vs “Sharpshooting”

We at Musky Insider have long supported Muskies Inc. and all that they stand for. It’s an amazing organization made up of volunteers that has improved musky fishing for all of us.

Having said that, we were a little surprised by the controversial position statement Muskies Inc. put out regarding forward facing sonar.

FFS is a polarizing topic as is, but they really stirred up the hornet's nest with this statement which has now been aggressively broadcast through their social channels, website, and magazine. 

You can find the entire statement right here. 

But, the paragraph below definitely got people from many different perspectives all fired up!🔥

“Sharpshooting,” the practice of using live view, 360, or side scan to target individual muskie, should be considered unethical. The scope of “Fair Chase” will be debated, but refraining from “sharpshooting”, avoiding spawning fish, and the harassment of any fish that show no interest in eating is a starting point in protecting fragile muskie populations."

It’s an interesting statement to say the least, especially when it mentions the “advent of new electronic technology to target fish” but then lumps 360 and side imaging into the mix. (Side imaging has been around for nearly 20 years now.)

Reactions to the statement appear to be dividing the musky community into smaller more fragmented groups than just people for or against forward facing sonar. The statement seems to give folks with FFS that don’t cast at the fish they see on their screens “a pass” but still implicates people without FFS that cast at the fish they see on side imaging or 360 as unethical.

The statement also obviously puts guides (many of whom donate trips to and frequently speak at Muskies Inc events) in a precarious position.

The statement is fueling heated debates about ethics, fishing tech, and whether or not an angler can actually force a musky to bite by continually pounding it with baits.

Muskies Inc. left a lot of grey area to be sorted out with their statement and it leads to a lot more questions than answers for us all to ponder.

So we decided to attempt to eliminate as much grey area as possible by creating the mother of all forward facing sonar surveys!

Warning: This survey is extremely long and it will take about 15-20 minutes to complete. (But, if it makes you feel any better, it took us a lot longer to create it! 😂)

Judging by the amount of time people spend lighting up the comments section on this topic, we’re hoping they will take the time to complete the entire survey.

Please note: We have the survey divided into three sections for three different groups of people.

1. A survey for musky anglers and musky guides that do not own or frequently use forward facing sonar (link)

2. A survey for musky anglers (that aren’t guides) that own and frequently use forward facing sonar (link)

3. A survey only for musky guides that own and use forward facing sonar. (link)

Why three different surveys?

All three versions of the survey have the exact same questions. The only difference is, the musky anglers and guides that own and use FFS have additional questions asking them about how they are using it and quantifying how it effects their catch rates, size of the fish they catch, etc. The group of guides and anglers that do not currently own FFS also have one extra question on how they feel others using FFS may be affecting their own fishing experience.

Why are the musky anglers and guides who own and frequently use FFS split into two groups?

Since we are asking additional questions to these two groups about catch rates, etc., we want to separate the two groups to see if FFS is impacting the catch rates of one group more than the other.

Hopefully, this survey will help eliminate some of the grey areas and help us identify what we as a musky community are most aligned with regarding ethics and technology and also where we are most fragmented.

 It will also be interesting to see what the survey reveals about how FFS is being used and how it’s impacting musky catch rates!