Giant muskie fulfills Woodbury man's dream

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Giant muskie fulfills Woodbury man's dream
Angler's catch isn't a record, but it's enough to honor memory of late grandfather
BY CHRIS NISKANEN Outdoors Editor, St Paul Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 10/31/2007 12:43:09 AM CDT
For article and picture http://www.twincities.com/outdoors/ci_7325811?nclick_check=1

When Joe Kiritschenko caught a 50-pound muskie Saturday on Lake Mille Lacs, the Woodbury man dropped to his knees and cried.

He was 4 pounds short of Minnesota's venerable state muskie record, but that's not why tears flowed from the 34-year-old angler's eyes.

For two decades, Kiritschenko and his Russian immigrant grandfather, Peter, had chased big pike and muskies across northern Minnesota. But they never caught a truly big one. Peter, a St. Paul sign painter who was like a father to Joe, died in 2001 at age 86.

"He meant everything to me,'' said Joe, whose real father left the family. "I called him Papa. He would have loved to see a fish like this."

Ditto for most Minnesota anglers. It is one of only a handful of 50-pound-plus muskies that have been caught, weighed and well-documented in Minnesota in the past two decades. The fish was 55 inches long and had a 27½-inch girth. It was weighed on a state-certified scale.

"It's a rarity,'' said Jerry Younk, a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources muskie researcher based in Bemidji.

Using a formula based on length, the muskie could have been 14 to 20 years old, Younk said.

It was also hungry. Another angler had recently caught and lost the fish because Kiritschenko found a small Rapala lure stuck in its mouth.

"The muskie was so big I couldn't hold it up all the way,'' Kiritschenko said.

Kiritschenko has fished for muskies since he was 7 and has never kept one. Like other muskie anglers, he believes in releasing muskies so they can grow bigger.
But this muskie was deeply hooked and couldn't be revived.

"It was belly up,'' Kiritschenko said. "I have mixed emotions about keeping it because I know there will be a backlash from other anglers who don't believe in keeping fish. But I didn't have a choice."

The state record of 54 pounds, caught in 1957 in Lake Winnibigoshish, is one of Minnesota's oldest and most venerated fish records.

In recent years, a few muskie anglers have claimed to have caught fish near the state record, after measuring and releasing them. Few huge muskies have been killed and weighed on state-certified scales, a requirement for state-record certification

Before catching his fish, Kiritschenko spent two fruitless days fishing Mille Lacs with his friend Josh Stevenson, of Woodbury. Stevenson, who owns Blue Ribbon Bait and Tackle in Oakdale, holds the state record for tiger muskie (a pike-muskie hybrid).

The friends decided to split up Saturday morning to try new spots and techniques. Kiritschenko was alone and made just 10 casts around 11:30 on the northwest corner of Mille Lacs when the muskie hit. He was using a cream-colored, 15-inch-long lure called a Heli Dawg.

"I tried three casts with a different lure but just had a feeling I needed to do something different,'' Kiritschenko said.

He didn't take long to bring the muskie to the boat, but he had to hold his rod in his left hand and try to net with the other. "I just scooped it up and fell backwards into the boat,'' he said.

Once it was in the boat, he called Stevenson, then his mother, his wife and his sister.

"I told my wife, 'I finally got him. I got him for Papa.' ''

She later hung a banner on the garage door that said, "Congratulations! 55 inches."

Chris Niskanen can be reached at cniskanen@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5524.

STATE RECORD

The state record muskie of 54 pounds was caught in 1957 in Lake Winnibigoshish.

WHY THIS FISH IS RARE

Jerry Younk, a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources muskie researcher, said he has handled more than 1,000 muskies in his 25-year career and has never held a 50-pounder. With today's catch and release ethic, only a few large muskies are caught and weighed. Most are only measured and released, so Kiritschenko's fish is a rarity because its true weight is known, Younk said.

OTHER BIG FISH

-- Jody Dahm, of Lakeville, caught, weighed and released a Mille Lacs muskie on Oct. 6, 2006, that tipped an uncertified scale between 52 and 54 pounds. It measured 54 inches long with a girth slightly larger than 28 inches.

-- In 1996, an Iowa angler caught, weighed and released a 52-pound, 4-ounce muskie in Leech Lake. It was 55 inches long with a 28-inch girth.

-- In 1996, an angler caught and kept a 50-pound, 14-ounce muskie from Lake Bemidji


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Decision to keep trophy muskie shouldn't draw backlash
CHRIS NISKANEN
Article Last Updated: 11/01/2007 05:42:40 PM CDT

It's OK to kill a trophy muskie. You won't go to prison, but your name may get trashed in a narrow-minded world of catch-and-release muskie anglers who treat these fish like they're Mahatma Gandhi.

Joe Kiritschenko feared the worst last week. The Woodbury angler is a muskie-worshipping, catch-and-release guy who caught a 50-pound muskie in Lake Mille Lacs on Oct. 27. But it swallowed the large rubber lure, called a Heli Dawg, and its gills were bleeding badly.

Joe worked and worked to revive the fish, but he knew it would likely die even if it did swim away, so he did the unthinkable - he kept a monster muskie.

On Tuesday, Kiritschenko wasn't celebrating his big catch, but fretting about how the rest of the muskie world would treat him in Internet chat rooms and bait stores. Others who have kept big muskies have been brutalized by venomous Internet chatter, and Kiritschenko feared he was next, even though he has never kept a muskie in 27 years of fishing.

"I just know there's going to be a backlash,'' he said nervously.

It's a pitiful world when anglers treat each other like serial murderers just for keeping a fish.

I interviewed Joe on Tuesday and he still had that wonderful dazed look of an angler who has finally touched the untouchable - the fish of a lifetime. Mind you, he had caught the fish three days earlier, but when Joe would tell the story, he would still stop in midsentence and shake his head. "It still feels like a dream,'' he said.

He could remember every vivid detail of the experience - how he held his rod on the fateful cast, the powerful surge of the fish as it swam the length of the boat, the rush of adrenaline when he finally saw it break the surface and how he executed a one-handed net job like a wide receiver pulling in the fingertip catch in the end zone.
Nothing like that had ever happened in Joe's life.

A few of us stood inside Blue Ribbon Bait and Tackle in Oakdale, listening to Joe's tale. When he talked about how the fish evoked memories of his immigrant grandfather, Peter, who taught him to fish, the room grew silent. Peter had been the patriarch of Joe's family, but he found time to pass on his love of fishing to his grandson, whom he took up north every chance he could.

"We'd go fishing and sleep in the back of the van in October and November,'' Joe said. "I was 7. That's when I caught the muskie bug. Papa took care of me a lot when I was growing up."

Everyone in Joe's family knew the significance of his Oct. 27 fish. It represented the one Joe and Peter never caught together. His wife was so proud of the event that she hung a banner on the garage door, congratulating her husband on his accomplishment.

As Joe told his story, his cell phone rang. It was his wife. They have a 4-month-old son, and Joe asked, "Is everything OK?" I recognized the voice of the new and worried father. He hung up the phone and said that even though fishing has been a big part of his life, "it's nothing compared to having my son."

A new son, a loving wife and the fish of a lifetime - Joe Kiritschenko has it all. Yet what he's really worried about is some anonymous clown on the Internet dragging his reputation through the mud because he kept a muskie.

It's a silly world.

"Just think, Joe,'' I said. "Your son will be able to look at that fish on the wall for the rest of his life and say, 'My dad caught that.' It is now and forever a part of your family legacy."

"I hadn't thought of that,'' he said.

The smile returned to Kiritschenko's face. He had climbed the mountain. He had caught a giant fish and it had died. Big deal. Some day soon, he's going to put that fish on his wall, kick off his shoes, pop open a cold beverage and relive a cold morning on Mille Lacs Lake for the rest of his life.

And do you blame him?

Chris Niskanen can be reached at cniskanen@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5524.