‘It was insane, breath-taking, the fish of a lifetime’ Posted Oct 15th 
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Demetrio Ascioti, of Fairmount, N.Y. with his 50-inch tiger muskie he caught and released Oct. 12 while fishing on Otisco Lake.
“All I know is my dog weighs 34 pounds and this fish was significantly heavier. I was resting it on my knee in one picture, and when I stood up (for another picture) I was grunting to holdit,” he said.
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Ascioti caught his huge tiger Saturday evening at about 5:30 p.m. Conditions on the lake at the time, he said, were really windy. There was mist in the air and the clouds indicated a heay rainmight be coming soon. The two had been casting lures for awhile and decided to try something different – to troll with the wind providing the power.
Ascioti took his 17-foot Bayliner boat out into the middle of the lake and started quickly drifting southward.
“I just threw out my Storm black and white stickbait that I use for salmon fishing,” he said.
Shortly after, his rod with that lure suddenly bent. Ascioti thought he was snagged on the bottom,
but then he felt the shake of a huge fish.
“I said, ‘Oh my God, there’s something on here!” he said.
The fight lasted about 10 minutes, Woytan said. The Onondaga Hill resident said he grabbed Ascioti’s net and realized it was borderline small.
“When I saw its head, I initially thought he was going to lose it. I could see there was only had one hook from the treble hook on the lure in the fish’s mouth. I was sprawled out across theback of his motor and was danger of falling into the water head first,”
Woytan said. “When I got the fish into the net, the freakin’ net handle almost broke. But we got her in. It was very cool.”
Demetrio Ascioti with his 50-inch tiger muskie he caught in Otisco Lake. The fish was barely hooked in the lip when it was netted.
Ascioti bought the boat this summer. He and Woytan have been out fishing around 20 times since. He said he’s caught a few tiger muskies before on Onondaga Lake. This was his first Otisco Laketiger, he said. A tiger muskie is a sterile hybrid, a cross between a northern pike and muskellunge.
Ascioti knew that the way to properly hold a tiger musie that one intends to release is to hold it horizontally. Anglers who hold any species of pike (esox) – tiger muskies, muskies, northernpike, pickerel, etc. – vertically risk killing it, because the position shift’s the fish’s internal organs. Other things to remember is to avoid holding the fish by the gills and to to minimize the time the fish is out of the water.
“When I slid it into the water, it went down and then came up for about 10 seconds – and then swam off. I didn’t want to to see it floating on the surface,” Ascioti said.
Otisco Lake, which is the eastern-most Finger Lake and 5.2 miles long, is known as a trophy fishing lake for tiger muskies. The DEC stocks it with tigers raised at the DEC fish hatchery inSouth Otselic in Chenango County.
Ina 2016 interview, David Lemon, the DEC’s regional fisheries manager for Region 7, said he has no doubt a new state record tiger muskie lurks in its waters.
"I don't doubt it for a second," he said. "The food, the forage base, those fish have good growth potential. There's no better place to catch a quality tiger muskie. Legitimately, I'd say it'sthe best place in New York State to catch one."
In February 2009, Lakeland resident Tom Boise caught a 46-inch; 27-pound, 5-ounce tiger muskie while ice fishing on the lake. Boise’s catch is the world record for a tiger muskie caught on a tip-up, according to the the Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward, Wisc.
Ascioti said he doesn’t care about a state record.“I told Todd that I know I’m going to get a lot of crap from people for not keeping this fish,” he said. “ But Todd and I know. We saw it. That’s all we need. I’ve already sent photos to ataxidermist and eventually will have a replica made.”
Demetrio Ascioti, of Fairmount, N.Y., holds his 50-inch tiger muskie he caught in Otisco Lake just prior to releasing it.
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