50" CLUB

TOM OZEE CATCHES RECORD BREAKING MUSKIE
 On the morning of September 14th, 2002 Tom Ozee did what he like to do, go fishing with his son Mike. Both fisherman were having a good time catching muskies 41 inches and 44 1/2 inches long. They had only been out on the water a few hours, but the day looked promising.
 Tom caught a muskie he knew was big and when the 3Olb Boga Grip bottomed out he thought he might have a Lake Shelbyville record. They had to quit fishing to find a certified scale. Tom and Mike found one at a local grocery store so his catch could be official.
 Tom’s muskie was 51 inches long and 30.09 pounds. The Core of Engineers will have it mounted and it will be displayed until the next record breaking muskie is caught.
 The talented Ozee family have been amazing club members with their photo gallery of muskie catches all year, now they amaze the rest of the state.

Luke Spark's 50'!
The muskie you see here was the culmination of my 2003 August trip to Lake Vermillion in Minnesota.  It was day six of my trip when my trolling motor quit working.  I spent most of my day being frustrated while doing my best to make some good drifts over my favorite weed flats.  By evening I had finally had enough and decided to do some trolling with my big motor.  I chose a spot where I saw a monster fish come up on a topwater bait earlier that day (when my trolling motor was still working).  It was about 8:15 PM.  Being the dedicated topwater fisherman that I am, I decided to troll none other than a small topwater prop bait (I think it's a stomper).  I pulled up on the spot, threw the bait behind the boat, set my speed, and looked back once to make sure the bait was working properly.  I hadn't even trolled the bait further than a normal cast when WHAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!  That monster I saw earlier absolutely annihilated my bait.  I knew right away I had a HUGE fish.  This muskie stayed down and it seemed like forever before I saw the fish again at the side of the boat.  After sliding it into the net, we measured it at 53.5 inches!  Weight estimates put this fish in the low 40 lb class.   
Amazingly enough, this was the second muskie over 50 that I put in the boat that week.  Two days earlier I had caught a 50.5 inch muskie on a topraider (I don't know exactly how much it weighed but it bottomed out the scale on my 30 lb boga grip).  Also coming on this trip were  bonus 35" and 43" muskies.  All the fish were caught on topwater and the funning thing is...before this trip I had never caught a muskie over 40 inches!

The Best Present by Nick Nigro

 
 My Partner Dale Craine and me were on our way to Shelbyville for the IMTT Tournament Sat. May 31,2003. It was my birthday. We left my house in New Lenox at 7:30 PM friday night with the truck, boat and sliding camper. We had 3 V2 hour ride. We just about got to Lithia Springs Camp Ground, when I had to pull off the road to let an ambulance by. When I got back on the road my truck felt funny like the back end was sliding. Well when we got to the guardhouse were you pay for camping. I checked the back end of my truck and we had a flat tire. Great!
 We tried to change the tire there but the camper blocked the hole in the bumper to lower the spare tire so I had to unhook the boat at the bathrooms, fmd a flat campsite so I could take the camper off the truck. We got everything back together at just about lAM and we had to be at the tournament at 5:30 am., got a little sleep and made it to the tournament. We fished all day and never saw a musky, but we caught 2 Bass on musky baits. After the tournament was over we went back to campground and had dinner and relaxed.
I went down and took a shower and when I came back it was 6:30PM. I
 told Dale that I wanted to go back out. He really didn’t want to for 2 hrs. "Do you really want to put the boat in for 2 hrs?" Dale said. I said, "Ya. It’s my birthday and I need to be on the water."
 Got on the water 7:10 pm. It was weird because nobody else was out and the water had calmed down and the wind had changed out of the east. Most of the day we stayed out of Lithia Spring Cove because everyone goes there and we wanted to find some new spots. The main lake was still a little choppy, so we stayed in Lithia.
 We were working a stump point at about 8:10PM. Casting from about 30 ft of water up to the point. When I caught a musky roll on the surface out of the corner of my eye. It looked like a mid forties fish. I reeled up.as fast as I could and fired my crank bait about 5 ft. past it and started cranking after about 10 turns of the handle. I thought I was snagged on a stump. Then she turned. I yelled to Dale to get the net. I knew I had her. She tried to take me back in the stumps. I horsed her out of there.

I tried using the trolling motor to get me out to deeper water but I was stuck on a stump! Then she tried runfling at my trolling motor. So pulled it up. When Dale netted her I could see how big she really was. A good 12" of the fish was hanging out of my Beckman net! I could not believe it. I took some pictures and measured her on the bump board 51" X 23". Got a good girth measurement and put her back.
 I let her to go, she went down and came up a few minutes later. She sat next to the boat then she burped, some bubbles came out and she was gone. We hung around for about 1/2 hour to see if she came up she didn’t. We went out Sunday and checked again but she never came back up.
 I have been fishing Lake Shelbyville since 1989, and for musky only, since 1997 . I’ve come down at least 20 times a year and there were a lot of trips we never even seen a fish. My biggest till this one was 46" 1/2 from Lake Shelbyville. Well, good luck to everybody. May the musky Gods be as generous to you as they were to me? Have a Great Year.

Thank You

Nick Nigro