Catching and releasing a muskie of a lifetime, otherwise known as living the dream

Pat Karpinski lived his dream Thursday night after dinner, catching and releasing his first muskie topping 50 inches.

“This is a fish that I have been dreaming about for over 20 years now and I finally got to take my picture with her!,” he messaged. “I am so incredibly grateful to have this experience with my uncle; this one means a lot to me. And what’s even cooler is we found out that this fish has been caught now four times and it was 51 inches last year so, who knows, [she] could’ve gained half or even a full inch. But the number isn’t what’s important, the experience is”

He was fishing in northwestern Wisconsin with Michael Karpinski, who retired as a master sergeant with the Illinois State Police last year.

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 chicago.suntimes.com/outdoorsgoes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.

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