A fish story big enough to fit the fish

Keep in mind as John Hines tells this that his partner Bob Johnson on July 28 had never fished muskie before. Yet that morning Johnson netted the muskie of Hines' life.

"I cast up shallow and turned the reel twice," said Hines, who was throwing a black and gold Mepps Musky Killer tandem bucktail on the Wisconsin River near Tomahawk, Wisconsin.

A muskie hammered his bucktail in a couple feet of water near the edge of deep water.

That's when Johnson, a neighbor near Hines' cabin in Tomahawk, mattered.

"Sunday is his only day off," Hines said. "If he had not wanted to go, I would have never caught it."

On the fly, Hines gave a lesson in netting big fish to Johnson.

"Put half the net in the water, when I lead it to you and lift the head, you scoop it," Hines told him.

Johnson did it perfectly.

"I am 75 years old, I couldn't have done that by myself," Hines said. "Everything fell into place."

It was 51 inches and Hines estimated it at 37 pounds. He did not get a girth as he was trying to release it very quickly.

"When I first caught it, I didn't realize how big it was until I tried lifting it," he said.

It easily topped Hines' previous best, a 49-incher caught on Lake of the Woods 20 years ago.

"I don't think this fish had any marks or scars on it," Hines said. "I don't think this one had ever been caught before."

Hines, of Mundelein, was originally a walleye fisherman, then turned to muskie fishing a couple years after returning from Vietnam. He used to run Country Corner, which had the Illinois record largemouth bass hanging for years.

Special thanks to Don Fudala for the story tip.