Trophy Musky...A Rational Perspective By Tony Rizzo © 2005, Reprinted With Permission Being a full-time musky guide for almost 44 years has given me the pleasure of sharing the boat with a large number of people from a variety of backgrounds and a wide range of fishing experiences. Over the course of any given day on the water, the topic of discussion will almost always turn to big musky. What big fish have been caught? What’s news of fish caught from other areas? What is a big musky and why aren't more of the real big ones caught? There has been a plethora of fishing shows on cable television in recent years. There are fishing shows where some hotshot celebrity fishermen claim to catch one or two 50 inch musky on each episode. Fishing magazines have become increasingly species specific with several musky magazines available today. You can see 50 inch musky on almost every page of these publications. Watching these shows and reading these magazines gives the impression that 50 inch muskies are commonplace. The musky releases reported in many clubs or posted on the release boards at local sport shops boggle the mind. Everyone seems to catch 50 inch muskies and there are some people that catch lots of them every year! Doesn't anyone catch 48 or 49 inch muskies anymore? I'm not saying that these people are not entirely truthful, it just strikes me as odd since I know from my years on the water that 48 and 49 inch muskies are caught a lot more frequently than 50 or 51 inch muskies. It seems to me that the tendency to stretch the size of
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