Michigan Sportsmen’s Web

Dear Gentlemen and Sister Fisherwomen,

My Adventure began on a 2 week retreat with my husband for our 2nd year wedding anniversary trip to the Western part of the Upper Peninsula. We have a pop-up camper and stay in the state park of Crystal Falls. We had planned on fishing the entire 2 weeks of our vacation but before we went out to fish on the morning of October 12, 2005 we had decided to go home early, due to poor fishing conditions we had experienced the whole trip. As usual we went to my favorite spot on the lake and we set anchors. My husband as he always does, in the fall, throw out a 17 LB test with a walleye sucker minnow on it, along with his usual beavertail hook. We hadn’t been there about 10 mins when he thought he would change the spot where he threw out his minnow because the day before we were catching pike on the back end of the boat and he turned around to see his bobber gone. He then turned to me and said his bobber was gone and he wanted me to bring in the fish. We both could see the line was feeding pretty good, so I picked up the pole and began to wind in the line until it began to feel taught and set the hook. My Husband made a comment as I set the hook that it wasn’t a very good set because the line didn’t move very much, but I informed him that it was heavy, whatever it was.

With that the battle began….

The line was feeding out to sea, under the boat, the pole totally bent in 2 and the eye of the pole under the boat. At one point I did see her and said, “This B**ch is HUGH!!…and that it was at least 35 inches, but my husband was thinking of pulling anchors and lifting the motor, he missed seeing her. Needless to say, my husband decided against pulling the anchor and motor and the fish wrapped herself around all of it but luckily she decided to take a break from fighting when my husband was untangling the fishing line from everything so she missed her opportunity to get away and couldn’t break free of my hook. Finally after much untangling and fighting with her she became free and I could bring her up to the surface and we looked down and the net we had brought was undersized for what we needed. My husband was thinking of a way to grab her by the gills but he was unsure if picking her up like that and he would get cut because what I brought in was a 40 inch little over 17 lbs. northern pike.

Finally my husband decided to place the net in front of her nose and she decided to try and dive away again and she planted herself right inside the rubber net we had and with that we brought her into the boat. My husband keeps saying that it is my fish but all I know is if I was by myself I would have never gotten her. So team effort goes a long way.. Thank you for listening to my great fishing story. It really was too good to be true that day. Carolyn Benko Fenton, Michigan

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