Reel Big: Monster Muskie Sets State Record

The results are in. A massive muskelunge caught back on June 4th has been confirmed as the new Wisconsin live-release record.

The 56-inch muskie was reeled in by guide Jeff Van Remortel in Green Bay. The Door Country-area hunting and fishing guide was out with a client when the hog hit his lure. The fish was also 26 inches around. While that doesn’t matter in terms of the record, it’s freakin’ huge. For context, that is two inches larger than the late Hulk Hogan’s arms.

There are a lot of details about the moon in the play-by-play of landing the record catch that the Drink Wisconsinbly Week in Review Editorial Board doesn’t quite follow. Full disclosure, we’re more of an indoorsy editorial board. All of our exposure to muskies is from when our Schmidt Beer happens to have one emblazoned on the side of the can. So at first we thought it must be some werewolf-like situation, where a normal-sized muskie grows into a monster fish when the lunar cycle hits just right. But we learned that the moon affects a muskie like whatever substances the teens giggling in the Kwik Trip snack aisle at 1 a.m. ingested out in the parking lot.

Their luck continued a little while longer when their client, Mike Jacoby, caught a 48-inch muskie a short time later. Then the moon went away, and the feeding frenzy ended.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources began tracking live-release records in 2017. There is a specific process of measuring and photographing a catch to get it on the books. Van Remortel claims he’s caught bigger muskies in the past, so there’s hope if you want to knock him from the top of the mountain.

But you’d better bring your A-game. He caught another 56-inch muskie that matched his own record just last week. The guy really seems to have those moon phases figured out.