and most only get to 42 to 44 inches or so although a few do get larger. Looking at this information makes it easy to see why it is so difficult to catch a 49 or 52 inch musky. There just aren't that many around. The life expectancy of a musky is somewhere around 23 to 25 years depending on the latitude and the lake. Many people think that muskies live a long time and that if stricter size limits are put in place, that they will keep getting bigger and bigger but the fact is that if you release a 20-year-old musky she only has, at best, a few more years to live. Like all wild animals, a musky will only stay at her peak wait for a few years in her prime. After that she will start to go downhill. I have had a number of these older fish in my boat and they are easy to recognize by their big heads and skinny bodies. Some of them even look old. So not only are there very few muskies that survive the 18 or 20 years necessary to become a 30 or 40 pound fish, but they are only at their peak weight for a few years. Our window to catch them at their peak is very small. Fish biologists have told me that these older muskies don't spawn. My clients have kept a few of these old fish and several were found to still have their eggs long after they should have spawned. I have been told that these fish will absorb the eggs back into their bodies. What I am sure of is that these fish that retain their eggs are very difficult to catch. Any musky that has survived for 18 or 20 years has been around the block a few times. She has seen every type and color of lure. These are very wary fish and are very difficult to trick into hitting a lure. I also think that the lures we commonly use just aren't big enough to tempt them. While those 10 inch crank baits and jerk baits may seem big when you are casting them, they are small
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