The 8th Annual Metro Muskie Tournament was a record-setter with 391 participants. After a week straight of cold fronts and storms, this was the first nice day of the muskie season. While the weather made for an enjoyable day on the water, most anglers found the muskies in a less than cooperative mood. There were a total of 34 muskies entered in the grand prize drawing, the lowest in four years. In all, only nine qualifying muskies over 40 inches were registered.
For the third consecutive year, it took two muskies to capture 1st place in the 2004 Metro Muskie Tournament. Duff Thury continued his success in this event when he caught a 41" working a shallow invader over shallow weeds. Duff's decision to switch tactics and finish up the day trolling paid big at 12:45pm when Forest Lake produced a 43" muskie (shown here) while trolling deep water with a crankbait. Ed Weber caught the event's largest muskie - a 46" - on Forest Lake. Slow trolling a crappie-colored Bionic Bucktail along the deep breakline produced this fish with less than an hour left in the tournament, and landed him in second place.
The classic black bucktail is still the top producing muskie lure as proven by the catches taking 3rd, 4th, and 5th place in the 2004 tournament. Brad Newbauer's 43-1/8" muskie also came from Forest Lake at 8:30am in ten feet of water. 4th place was awarded to Paul Happe for catching a 43" muskie at 10:30am on Lake Independence along the ten-foot breakline. This year's event proves that while the muskie may be the King of Freshwater, cold fronts can send them sulking until better conditions arrive.
The 2004 tournament produced great results for the junior participants - of note were Axel Rosar - 39-3/4", Aaron Larson - 38-1/4", Nathan Stott - 40-1/4", and "Lucky" Libby Hoene - 43". Libby's muskie was large enough to take 4th place, but she chose to take the junior division victory instead, winning a trip to Stork Lake Lodge where she filmed with Bob Meshikomer. Her fish was caught on Lake Independence with a fast moving perch-colored phantom.
Nathan Stott's muskie was large enough to take 5th place in the open division. This was the first time ever for a junior participant to be in the Metro Muskie Tournament's top ten places. His muskie was caught at 2:00pm on Eagle Lake using a black bucktail in the shallows. The timing was great for this 9-year-old's first muskie ever!
"Lucky" Libby Hoene took the Junior division with this 43" fish from Lake Independence.
Nathan Stott took 5th place with his first-ever muskie, caught on Eagle Lake.
The 8th Annual Metro Muskie Tournament was a record-setter with 391 participants. After a week straight of cold fronts and storms, this was the first nice day of the muskie season. While the weather made for an enjoyable day on the water, most anglers found the muskies in a less than cooperative mood. There were a total of 34 muskies entered in the grand prize drawing, the lowest in four years. In all, only nine qualifying muskies over 40 inches were registered.
