World-record fish?We’All never know

Avid Waterloo angler lands
monster muskie on Lake Nipissing.

Regrettably, we will never know for sure. Kevin and his older brother, Gary, fishing buddies since they were kids, have been chasing the finned giant on Lake Nipissing, near north Bay, for a few years.

While many muskie “fanatics’’ know the northern lake is home to some huge muskie's, most anglers still roam Nipissing in chase of the bread-andbutter walleye, pike, perch and smallmouth bass. Gary, who lives in Callander, on the shores of Nipissing, concentrates most of his efforts on Lake Nipissing and neighboring Lake Nosbonsing. And when he can, Kevin joins him during holidays and on the odd weekend in pursuit of the fish of a lifetime. The brothers have spent a total of 225 hours on the water this year in pursuit of muskie; Gary, with a lake in his backyard, has logged 200 of them.
Kevin recently bought a brand new muskie rod and four lures and joined his brother last Friday for a little afternoon muskie research on Lake Nipissing. It would be a day they would never forget.

“We actually started casting, but soon switched over to trolling about noon hour,’’ said Kevin. “Two hours later, I was dancing a 10-inch, fiery-perchcoloured Believer lure down about 10 to 12 feet, when — thump — I thought I hit a snag.’’ Seconds later, what may well be the biggest muskie ever to be seen on Lake Nipissing rocketed eight feet out of the water. “It’s a monster!’’ screamed Gary. Kevin was speechless, but his mind was yelling, “Don’t lose this one! Please don’t lose this one!’’ Luckily, older brother had loaned Kevin a level-wind reel spooled with 80-lb.-test braided fishing line. A muskie nut if there ever was one, Gary runs the stout line for good reason. “Using heavy line accomplishes a number of
things, but in the end, it’s best for the muskie,’’ said Gary. “There’s much less chance of the line breaking and a muskie (being) left to possibly die because it’s forced to drag a lure around. “More importantly, it allows the angler to land the muskie quickly, which makes for a quick and safe release of the fish to fight another day.’’ The strategy worked and in about five minutes Gary wrapped as much of his large net around the beast as possible. The brothers had nothing flexible with them to measure the fish’s girth, so
they quickly measured the length. Kevin then cradled it for a photo and, less than 15 seconds later, lowered the trophy into the water where it rocketed off to the depths. “I couldn't’t believe how heavy it was and how fast it swam away,’’ said Kevin. “And as planned, we got it back in the water very quickly, knowing the biggest fish of our lives was safe and sound.’’ When they finally composed themselves, they
realized they had just released a 58-inch muskie. But with no girth measurements to use for calculating
the fish’s size, exactly how big was the monster?

First of all, no one, including Ministry of Natural Resources officials, have ever seen a muskie of that size in Lake Nipissing. Further, after looking at the photo of Davison’s muskie, a number of local guides on Lake Nipissing estimated the girth to be 30 to 30-plus inches. I personally thought it was 30 to 32 inches. With this in mind, I referred to the Muskie Weight Estimating Chart published by MuskiesCanada and the formula used by Dr. John Casselman and the late Dr. Ed Crossman, two of North America’s leading muskie experts. According to Muskie Canada’s chart, a 58-inch muskie sporting a 30-inch girth would weigh 29.54 kilograms (65 pounds). Using Casselman’s and Crossman’s formula, the fish would weigh 28.68 kg (63.22 lbs.).

The Canadian record of 29.54 kg (65 lbs.) was set by Ken O’Brien with a muskie that he caught on Oct. 16, 1988 while walleye fishing in Georgian Bay’s Moon River basin. O’Brien’s fish, which was kept, was also 58 inches in length and had a 30.5-inch girth. While no one will ever know the girth of Davison’s muskie, I’ll toss out this little tidbit for you to think about. If the girth were 31 inches, the fish would have weighed 31.81 kg (70 lbs.), according to the Muskies Canada chart. Not only would it have been a Canadian record, it would have been a world record, as well. The present record of 69 pounds, 11 ounces was caught by Wisconsin’s Louis Spray on the Chippawa Flowage in his home state on Oct. 20, 1948. Kevin is back home in Waterloo, back on the job at Rockwell Automation in Cambridge, and dreaming fish dreams. Gary is back working the same waters in the North Bay area. The brothers Davison are 400 kilometres apart, but their minds are in the same place and on the same fish, and asking the same question: Just how much did that thing weigh?

April 12, 2009 - Looking west onto Lake Nipissing from the end of Cranberry Trail situated about 1 km north of Callander Bay. Behind the point on the left side of the photo lies South Bay. The south shore stretches on to the top of the French River and Burnt Island 30 km to the west. The average date for ice-out is April 28 with an average range of +/- 9 days (April 19 to May 7).

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