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Thursday, April 18, 2024
Outdoors Sports

A good first muskie: And matching wedding gifts to go with the catch

Shelly Cochran caught her first muskie shortly before her wedding and earned FOTW honors.

By  Dale Bowman
   
SHARE A good first muskie: And matching wedding gifts to go with the catch
Shelly Cochran caught her first muskie in northern Wisconsin. Provided photo

Shelly Cochran caught her first muskie in northern Wisconsin.

Provided

Shelly Cochran, then fiancee of Michael Karpinski, caught her first muskie (36 inches) this summer on a purple and yellow Marabou spinner bait on Lake Namakagon in Bayfield County, Wis.

“In 20 years of musky fishing, seeing her get that one was definitely one of the highlights,” emailed Pat Karpinski, Michael’s nephew.

When the couple married this month, Karpinski had a friend in Eau Claire, Wis. tie a purple and yellow inline bucktail for Cochran and a black with gold blade bucktail for his uncle.

FOTW, the celebration of big fish and their stories (the stories matter, as this one shows) around Chicago fishing, runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times. The online posting here at https://chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors goes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.

Submit nominations by message on Facebook (Dale Bowman), on Twitter (@BowmanOutside) and Instagram (@BowmanOutside) or email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com).

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