Oldest Muskies Ever - Unexpected Eats - PMTT Deets
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PMTT Championship Deets
The Professional Musky Tournament Trail Recon Boats World Championship took place last weekend on Wisconsin’s Eagle River Chain.
Only the top 36 teams from the qualifying events make it into the big dance, and this event was shaping up to be quite the “Battle Royale” with lots of fun storylines.
For starters, three of our Musky Insider Pro Instructors were in the hunt to be World Champs (Nate Osfar, Dan Wojtusik, and Ty Sennett) with Ty and his brother Tait looking to defend their title on the home turf of Nate and Dan.
Then add in the fact that Eagle River is also home to defending Top Gun Team of the Year (Gus and Max Mantey) as well as musky tournament legend Mark Lijewski.
Did we mention Dan Wojtusik (and his partner Jason Summers) came into the event leading in points for Top Gun with the Mantey’s and Sennett’s nipping at their heels?
This event had “Barn Burner” written all over it!
The weather was unseasonably warm, flat, and sunny leading up to the event and those tough conditions lingered throughout the three day event. A total of 28 muskies were registered.
Here’s how it all shook out via the PMTT’s press release....
1st Place – 3 muskies up to 46.5” – Ken Trail of Roanoke, VA & Mike Handlogten from Middleville, MI were dialed in throughout the tournament.
After day 1, they were the only team with two muskies on the board. On day 2, they landed the biggest fish of the tournament on their first cast at 46.5” on a purple Red October tube.
"We started out pre-fishing with glide baits in the morning followed by purple Red October tubes and small bucktails during the day and this pattern held up throughout the tournament," stated Handlogten.
With the same weather basically unchanged for the last day, they headed back to the same area and pattern.
"To be honest, we really didn’t move the entire tournament. We tried a couple other spots but that one weedy stretch of the lake was holding all our active fish and that purple tube was fire," stated Trail.
Well, that big musky was enough to push them over the finish line and earned them the 2024 PMTT/RECON BOATS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP Title, the new 2025 Recon Boats 2085T, options, a trailer & 150hp Mercury Marine Outboard, with the Recon winners bonus $1,000 and other bonuses totaling almost $60,000 in prizes.
2nd Place – 3 muskies up to 35.5” – Nate Osfar of Marathon, WI & Brian Krelle of Eagle River, WI were also in the weeds but throwing jerk baits and crank baits.
"We found the weeds in a relatively small area and were moving muskies," stated Krelle.
"We caught them all on big baits, though the muskies weren’t that big, all of our action came on big jerk baits and crank baits," stated Osfar.
The three muskies were good enough to take home the 2nd place cash and trophies.
3rd Place – 42.25” & 32.75” – Brian Barker from Clearfield, KY & Marek Ball from Maple Grove, MN had to troll the entire tournament because their big motor wouldn’t run.
So, they decided to troll the outside weed edges with firetiger crankbaits and caught two muskies up to 42.25” to seal the third-place finish.
4th Place – 40” & 34.5” – Ty Sennett from Hayward, WI & Tait Sennett from Princeville, IL were running and gunning hitting many weedy areas with jerkbaits and bucktails.
They put two muskies in the net and took home a fourth-place finish.
5th Place – 37.25” & 35.25” – Clayton Spiess & Nick Amorose both from Eagle River, WI were also working the shallow weeds with blades and a mix of other baits in natural colors.
They targeted shallow weedy areas around bait fish to connect on two muskies.
2024 PMTT TOP GUN - Team of the Year Award
1st Place - 479 pts. – Jason Summers & Dan Wojtusik
2nd Place – 468 pts – Gus Mantey & Max Mantey
3rd Place – 458 pts – Ty Sennett & Tait Sennett
So there you have it!
Huge congrats to World Champs 🏆 Ken Trail and Mike Handlogten along with Top Gun Team of the Year 🏆 Dan Wojtusik and Jason Summers.
It’s awesome to see our Musky Insider PRO instructors perform so well with all of them finishing in the top three for either the Championship or Top Gun. 🔥
Btw, we also just added Ken Trail and Gus Mantey to our list of Musky Insider PRO instructors for the coming year! So when we say we have the best of the best, we mean it!
If you're not an Insider PRO member yet and would like to be, make sure to get your name on our waitlist.
We just gave 10 people on the list a chance to get in last week, and we plan to give more folks on the list a chance to get in this month.
When You Least Expect It....
We all know the saying....
Muskies always seem to know who’s line to bite and when.
So, it should come as no surprise that even after a few rounds of figure-8’s, you may end up with what Mossy Creek Fly Fishing called "A daily dose of heartbreak":
Hey, it happens to the best of ‘em. 🤷♂️ Just ask Mike Keyes....
We found this vintage piece titled “when you least expect it” from an old Keyes Outdoors episode. At least this one had a happy ending.
This Midwest Outdoors clip might take the cake though.
Hope they got some enjoyment out of that RC boat before it got smashed. 😂
Long Live the 'skies
We recently received this cool story and photo from Musky Insider reader Nick Poppler.
"I got a 50 incher out of Bald Eagle a few days ago."
"It was a really old looking fish and the external tag was still in the fish. I sent the number to the DNR and it was stocked in 2008 and was 18.3 inches long at the time of stocking. That’s over 17 years old. But, get this.... I was the first person to have registered the fish!"
"I saw the three numbers on the tag and said to myself, this is a super old fish. This was one of the first fish tagged in Bald Eagle. It was skinny, but did swim off super strong."
It’s a great reminder of how long these fish can live if we take care of them.
It’s also kinda crazy that nobody else had reported the tag in those 17 years. (Bald Eagle lake is only a 1,047 acre lake and it receives significant fishing pressure.)
Here’s another old timer we featured back in 2021:
Believe it or not, that's the oldest known female musky in the state of Iowa, and she was 25 years old in this pic
She was born before Google and Facebook were invented and a good 6+ years before the Double Cowgirl caught its first 'skie....
Let that sink in for a minute. 🤯
She was captured on Lake Okoboji and was part of the 1996 year class. Ironically, since 2001 (the last time she was captured), the Iowa DNR put out nets 1,996 times across the entire Okoboji lake chain, and didn't recapture her until 2021.
And then there’s this 56 7/8” beast caught by Donnie Manz in the Brian Truax Memorial Tournament last year.
Donnie actually netted that same fish five years earlier when it was caught by Nik White and it measured 56.5 inches. Because the fish was part of a tagging study, Donnie confirmed the age of the fish was over 30 years old!
Long live the Queen!
This Week's Mashup:
Mashup time!
#1 – Wisconsin has a new Musky Madness scratch off lottery game.
Your chances of winning may be greater than catching a double nickel. (Unless you fish Green Bay of course.😉)
#2 – Cool to see Slump Bust Outdoors keeping this skinny water ‘skie wet throughout the entire process. 👊
#3 – Fall trollin’ is just around the corner and a fresh stock of the popular Slammer Tackle crankbaits just arrived over at Ezoko.
#4 – A reader spotted this musky made by Eagleview Metalworks while walking the halls of a Duluth, MN hospital. Cool find and thanks for sharing, Sara!😎
QUICK HITTERS:
– Rob Manthei - Navigating the Winds of Change (link) w/ Back Lash Podcast
– The Subtle Art of Having Fun & Catching Muskies (video) w/ 54 or Bust
– Musky Glide Bait Rundown!! - Gliders for Different Season and Situations (video) w/ Angling Anarchy
– Musky Fishing In The Worst Weather - The Row Boat Musky Chronicles (video) w/ Today’s Angler
– Lake St. Clair Musky - 51”, 46”, 47.5” - The Windy Night (video) w/ Smith’s Fishing Outdoors
This Week's Monster Muskies
"The front rolled in - and so did the bite!" said Terry Godreau of The Tilted Toque Wilderness Lodge.
This French River beast pounded a Red October tube:
Jason Lenz was fishing with his brother Matt Lenz, of Net Buddy, when he landed this thick 53.5" x 26.5" Green Bay ‘skie. It ate a Jointed Shallow Raider right at moonrise after a 13 hour grind.
A stellar Saint Clair beauty caught by Blake Madden. Congrats on the new PB! 🔥👊🏻
We’re diggin’ Bruno Mauti’s jumbo-sized bruiser. She fell for a 9” Jointed Sidewinder. You can’t hide a 54!
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