FishRook
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) has certified a state muskellunge fishing record months after it was released back into the wild.
Eric Bakke, an angler from Princeton, Minnesota, caught and released a muskie that was far longer than the width of his shoulders on June 11, from Mille Lacs Lake, a large lake that’s roughly 75 miles north of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area.
The muskie Bakke caught measured 58.25 inches, which beat out Minnesota’s two previous tied records of 57.25-inch muskies, both of which were caught from Lake Vermilion in 2019 and 2021, according to the MDNR’s news release about the new record.
“To be able to target and catch fish of this caliber has been one of the great passions of my life,” Bakke told the MDNR.
Bakke reportedly caught the muskie while trolling with a foot-long muskie lure.
When the muskie took the lure, Bakke reeled in the fish for a “minute or two” before his fishing…
