When Benjamin Knutson’s fishing rod bent double recently on Minnesota’s Mille Lacs Lake, “I knew right away,” he said. “This was the one I was hunting for; it was her!”
The muskie measured 56.5 inches and weighed an estimated 51 pounds; an exceptional catch for the large but shallow lake.
But while that could have justified calling it a day, Knutson, two hours later, landed another muskie that measured 53.25 inches and weighed an estimated 54 pounds (based on a length-girth measuring formula).
Both muskies were released and fell just short of record qualification in the state’s Catch-and-Release length category (the record is 57.4 inches).
Also, the second muskie, if Knutson’s weight estimate was accurate, would have tied a Minnesota weight record that has stood since 1957. (That fish measured 56 inches.)
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But that does not diminish the feat of catching two near-record muskies in one day, on a lake that’s famous for muskie fishing but does not produce many 50-inch fish.
“They’re just not that common,” Tom Heinrich, Mille Lacs fisheries supervisor for the Department of Natural Resources,” told the Star Tribune.
Knutson, 28, caught both muskies in frigid temperatures on Nov. 25 while fishing with a companion. The Star Tribune featured the “nearly inconceivable” double-catch over the weekend.
Knutson, who runs the Minnesota Angling Guide Service, was casting Bull Dawg rubber muskie lures from his 20-foot boat at a time of year when muskies are gorging on schooling tullibee.
He told For The Win Outdoors that the first muskie used head-shakes to try to shake free before “diving right into the center of the net.”
The second muskie made a powerful run to Knutson’s right before charging the boat. It began to thrash when it was half-netted and Knutson thought for a moment that he might lose the fish.
Knutson told the Star Tribune that after catching the first muskie, he shared the photograph online and telephoned a fishing buddy and said, “Dude, I did it.”
After the second catch he was simply astonished. “I have it all on film,” he said. “I’ve never heard of it… one guy catching two fish like that.”
–Photos showing Benjamin Knutson with two 50-pound-class muskies are courtesy of the angler