Muskie on a corkscrewing bait: Accidental catch while walleye fishing earns Fish of the Week

Brad Janis earned Fish of the Week honors for a good muskie caught while walleye fishing on the Chain O’Lakes.

Brad Janis and Lincoln Buchanan with a good muskie caught while walleye fishing on the Chain O’Lakes. Provided photo

Brad Janis and Lincoln Buchanan with a good muskie caught while walleye fishing on the Chain O’Lakes.

Provided

While walleye fishing on the Chain O’Lakes last week, Brad Janis (left) caught this thick muskie.

“We weren’t getting much action, then this musky hit,” Janis messaged. “At first, I thought it was a giant catfish, until we saw it. Had it perfectly hooked in the side of the mouth.”

Janis and Lincoln Buchanan (right) of T-Bone Guide Service were doing slow death—a bottom bouncer with a 4-foot leader and a night crawler on a Slow Death hook.

“When you troll at 1 mph, it causes the hook to spin like a corkscrew,” Janis messaged. “Walleyes love it. Apparently musky do, too.”

They didn’t have anything to measure it, but estimated 42-43 inches.

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.

To make submissions, email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com) or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or Instagram (@BowmanOutside).

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