Lake Vermilion/Muskie madness

[Lee Borgersen]

Muskie madness

 

Vermilion Dam Lodge packed as 175 muskie fanatics descend on the big lake
 
 
Ken Worel with a giant muskie caught last week on Lake Vermilion.
 
A muskie fanatic since his teens, Vermilion Dam Lodge owner Ed Tausk welcomed the opportunity to host the 2010 Gil Hamm Chapter Challunge that brought 175 top-tier anglers to Lake Vermilion.

The Star of the North team from Grand Rapids repeated as champions. Led by Ken Worel and his son Wesley, the team accumulated 228 points. Second place went to another team from the Star of the North Chapter, which finished with 96 points, while the Bemidji/Cass Lake Chapter took third with 41 points. The point system was based on the number of fish caught and the size of the fish.

Most teams had trouble landing just one muskie, but the Worels dominated the competition. Both father and son boated five fish, including the biggest catch of the tourney — a 54.25-incher reeled in by Ken.

Ken came equipped with a secret weapon — a 6-inch bucktail that he designed for the Inhaler tackle company. “We’ve just been killing them on that,” said Worel, who said his son Wesley, who by age 10 was giving advice to seasoned anglers, also used the lure.

Worel explained that relatively small lures zips past muskies who may not be hungry for a larger fish and will give chase to something small. “A lot of times the bite may be more of a reaction than because they’re hungry,” he said.

Tausk said the lure’s effectiveness may also be a result of the current lake conditions. A lot of small perch are in Lake Vermilion now and the lure may have mimicked their movements, he explained.

That abundance of natural forage plus warm temperatures may have had some impact on fishing during the tournament, said Tausk, who had expected more muskies to be caught. “Just the week before the tourney, one local guy had boated four in one evening,” he said.

But despite the tough angling, tournament participants were unanimous in their praise of the hospitality in the region and many planned to return to Lake Vermilion for more fishing trips.

“I never caught anything, but I saw a 50-incher swim by my boat,” said Collin Swift of Baxter, Minn. “That made my trip.”

Lure of muskies

Nate Hutchinson, of St. Louis, Mo., received his introduction to muskie fishing from his dad. He caught a 38-incher in about 20-feet of water on the second day of the tournament, but couldn’t add to his tally for the remainder of the event.

Hutchinson compared muskie fishing to hunting. “You keep trying to find a bigger fish every time, rather than just pulling a bunch of bass out over and over again,” he said. “It’s a lot more exciting.”

The 68-year-old Swift, who has been chasing muskies for 40 years, agreed. “The difficulty and challenge are what I like most about fishing muskie,” he said. “It’s being at the right place at the right time and with the fish in the right temperament before things start really clicking and falling together.”

Tim Turkowski, of the Brainerd Lakes Chapter, helped his team finish fourth in the competition with a 44-incher that he boated. “I would definitely come back here,” he declared.

“There’s just a mystique about muskies,” said Tausk, who has been an active muskie angler for 30 years. “It’s a challenge and once you get hooked, there’s no cure for the addiction.”

Tausk recalled how he spoke about his passion for muskie fishing with a doctor who had never gone fishing for the species. After seeing one of the monster fish that lurk in Lake Vermilion’s waters, the doctor made a trip to Gander Mountain and spent $500 on fishing equipment, Tausk laughed.

Lake Vermilion is well regarded by anglers as a prime muskie lake. In its last year of netting, 15 percent of the muskies recorded by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources were over 50 inches.

Tausk said the lake benefits from excellent fisheries management and that muskies were relatively unmolested for years when most anglers were focused on walleye and bass.

“Muskies have gotten to adult size without a lot of pressure because the families coming up here weren’t after them,” said Tausk.

Now that the secret is out, muskie anglers make regular pilgrimages to Lake Vermilion.

John Ryan, from the Chicago area, said he participated in this year’s Gil Hamm Challunge because it was being held at Lake Vermilion. “I had been here once before,” he said, and was awed by photos of some of the monster muskies pulled from the lake.

“I got stuck in the 1960s on muskies,” he said, dismissing walleyes, bass and northern as lesser species. “All the other ones are just bait.”