The Most Insane 12 Days of Muskie Fishing in Wisconsin History

This story, “The Twelve Days,” appeared within the September 1956 problem of Out of doors Life.

A couple of minutes earlier than midnight of October 29, 1955, Tony Burmek and his brother Fred set out from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on a visit that produced one of the vital unbelievable catches of muskellunge within the historical past of this unpredictable sport.

On the finish of 12 days of fishing, a lot of it in climate that froze strains to rods and began the primary ice of the season creeping out from the shores of Sawyer County lakes, Tony and his associate had introduced 17 muskies into the little Wisconsin city of Hayward. The smallest was a 25-pounder, many had been over 30 kilos, and one in every of them, at 43 1/8 kilos, was the most important muskie reported from the Hayward sector that 12 months.

Nearly from the primary day of their fishing, October 30, once they caught a 31¾-pounder and a 38½-pounder, the Burmek brothers had Hayward popping with pleasure. That’s fairly an achievement, for Hayward calls itself “the muskie capital of the world.” Day after day the Burmeks fished, typically in freezing winds which made it not possible to carry a ship over a bar lengthy sufficient to get in two casts. And every night they got here again to city with their fish, largely of trophy dimension.

Haywardites puzzled how lengthy the Burmek luck would maintain. And so they speculated, as fishermen will, that the Burmeks may be getting their monsters with setlines or through the use of suckers for bait, a lethal methodology that’s fairly authorized however thought-about unsporting by many.

Having been directed to the Rifkin normal retailer in Hayward to weigh their first day’s catch, the Burmeks thereafter weighed all their muskies at Rifkin’s. Fred and Tony drove to and from the dock in a station wagon, and folk quickly started flocking to the shop when the station wagon pulled in every evening.

Like baseball followers following a participant on a home-run spree, native folks turned more and more because the Burmeks piled up extra muskies. Ultimately as many as 50 individuals would crowd across the scales, and Julian Gingras, who publishes the weekly Sawyer County Document, mused that he’d wish to have a day by day paper to run a field rating for readers who had been now rooting for Fred and Tony.

When the 12 days had been over the Burmek muskie take totaled 533¼ kilos, plus 26 kilos for a single northern pike. They gave fish away as they caught them, and freezers in Hayward started filling up with muskies that must be lower in two to get them into ovens.

The statistics of the Burmek catch might be had from nearly anybody in Hayward, or from the newspapers. However over and above the statistics, spectacular as they’re, is the story of an actual fisherman, Tony Burmek. Tony, who makes most of his dwelling guiding fishermen on the waters round Hayward, is 43 years previous. For 20-odd years he has completed little else however fish for muskies.

There are any quantity who’re “loopy about fishing,” however nearly all the time these anglers differ their sport by pursuit of various species. Not Tony. Tony fishes for muskies, nothing else. I’ve identified this shy, courteous information for 10 years, and if he had the literary capability of an Ernest Hemingway, he might write a ebook about muskies that may be a traditional of its type.

Tony obtained eager about muskies in 1934, whereas visiting relations within the Hayward nation. Since then he’s devoted most of every summer time to finding out these fish, particularly these in Sawyer County lakes. If he spots fish he’ll preserve after it for weeks.

He believes that the perfect fishing is when the barometer is rising. There’s nothing new in that. However there may be in the best way Tony carries out the barometer’s orders. When it begins a sensational climb, Tony will drop something to get on muskie water.

He additionally makes use of contour maps. These, too, can be found to all anglers. Of the greater than 8,000 lakes in Wisconsin, some 1,200 have been contoured, a tremendous job completed again within the C.C.C. days. However in 20 years there have been slight modifications from silting, so Tony, the perfectionist makes annual airplane flights over the lakes to review variations within the bars. As soon as he discovered a productive reef that wasn’t proven on a contour map.

When Tony and Fred left Milwaukee late that October evening, that they had no thought they had been going to jot down a startling web page in Wisconsin muskie fishing. On the best way north they bumped into a bit snow. Once they obtained to Hayward the barometer was low.

By midday of that first day the barometer climbed from 29.75 to 29.90, temperature was 39, wind west, sky over­ solid. That was sufficient for Tony. He and Fred put a ship in Spherical Lake, six miles east of Hayward. This can be a “identify” muskie lake of three,276 acres, in a category with neighboring lakes corresponding to Grindstone, Lac Court docket Oreilles, Teal, Lostland, and Ghost.

It was to be drift fishing in mid-lake over bars Tony is aware of effectively and which few others hassle with. Fred selected a selfmade plug whittled out by Tony two years earlier than. In its few earlier assessments this plug had failed, so it had been forgotten in a sort out field.

On his third solid Fred hooked a small muskie and launched it. Within the time it took the boat to float 20 toes or so, Tony, casting with the identical plug, hooked a muskie which weighed 38½ kilos. That fish shook the hook because it lay exhausted alongside the boat, however Fred obtained a internet underneath the fish and heaved it aboard.

You’ll get no lengthy tales from Tony about fights with fish. He says, “You get one hooked stable and also you play him instinctively. The large second in muskie fishing is whenever you get the fish to strike.

Again over a mid-lake bar they went. It was Fred’s flip with the selfmade plug. He took a muskie that went 31 1/4 kilos — the most important male, Tony says, he’s ever seen. Large muskies are females, often.

A lot of the fish taken on this journey struck upward in deep water, generally in spots the place the underside was 25 toes straight down. The plug, which has a violent tail motion, was saved three or 4 toes under the floor. Tony says possibly different lures would have labored as effectively. He doesn’t know. He and Fred stayed with the one which was producing.

There’s a idea within the north that muskies go on feeding sprees in late autumn, and Tony is a powerful supporter of this concept. However, as he says, “Simply attempt to get most of the people out on these lakes in late October or November.”

Right here in Wisconsin it’s well-known that after Labor Day, and the opening of faculties, the fishing lakes are abandoned. You could possibly rake the Chippewa flowage with cannon hearth and endanger nary a fisherman.

The second day discovered the Burmeks again on Spherical Lake — barometer greater, wind nonetheless west, temperature 38. Tony’s diary information laconically that they didn’t get onto the lake till midday as a result of “All of the Hayward people had been round us speaking muskie fishing.”

Over the mid-lake bars within the first half hour they every launched muskies. The wind picked up, the boat pounded. They went inshore, and off a degree in deep water Tony hooked one. “It didn’t rush towards the bait on the floor such as you see ’em do in summer time,” says Tony. “Only one lunge up from the underside, then, increase,” Tony boated that fish. It weighed 28 kilos.

The third day was hotter. It was cloudy, with an east wind. Over the bars in the midst of Spherical Lake they drifted for 2 hours, releasing three fish weighing greater than 12 kilos apiece. They moved in to the purpose of the day prior to this, caught an 18-pounder and launched it.

The subsequent fish hit a great distance out from the boat. It was huge. Tony noticed the entire plug exterior the muskie’s mouth. He knew it was evenly hooked, and for15 minutes he sweated it out. Fred saved the present. He obtained a gaff into the fish simply because the plug dropped out. This one weighed 48½ kilos.

It was the most important muskie of the Hayward space for the season — as much as that second. They took that fish proper into Hayward, left it there, and returned to Large Spherical after lunch.

That afternoon over a mid-lake bar Fred felt that acquainted jolt of a fish developing from under. “We had fairly a time with this one,” Tony’s diary re­ cords. “He wouldn’t floor. I rowed fairly a approach with him. Then he got here up. Fred labored him in shut and I shot him with a pistol. The fish weighed 36 kilos.”

By the tip of the third day, all Hayward was speaking of the Burmek brothers. Writer Gingras made a date to go together with them subsequent day, then needed to cancel it.

For the fourth straight day they tried Spherical Lake. Fred misplaced a medium-size fish after which, over those self same mid-lake bars, caught a 26-pound northern pike. (Each the Burmeks will let you know that huge northerns combat as laborious as huge muskies.) After the northern, Fred obtained an 18-pound muskie and launched it. It was one in every of their coldest days, the day knuckles began to bleed from chapping. Tony additional battered his knuckles taking part in a 31-pounder that beat up his numbed fingers with the reel deal with.

Snow shoveling was the order of the fifth day. The Burmeks scooped the snow out of their boat on Spherical Lake and labored Leder’s Bay. Every hooked and launched small fish. Tony had determined to relaxation the mid-lake bars. Off White’s Level Fred hooked, performed, and shot a 29-pounder. On the entrance to Hidden Bay, Tony hooked and launched a small one. Then, effectively contained in the bay, Tony took a 26 1/4-pounder.

Monotonous? “No,” says Tony. “There was additional enjoyable in stepping into Hayward each evening with these fish. We had the skeptics trying fairly sick.”

On the sixth day the Burmeks nearly surrendered to the chilly. They labored Spherical Lake for 2 hours. Fred caught and launched a small muskie they usually went ashore and began a hearth. In later afternoon Tony took a muskie off Pine Level that weighed 33 kilos. Fred launched a small one. They give up.

On the seventh day Fred put again a muskie he estimated at 25 kilos. The fish was performed a very long time and was exhausted. To revive it they slipped it right into a moist gunny sack and sloshed the sack backwards and forwards within the water to make the gills open and shut, thus forcing oxygen to the fish.

This was Fred’s final day along with his brother. He took yet another muskie of about 14 kilos, returned it, and referred to as it quits. Shortly afterward Tony wound up the day with a 25-pounder. It was the smallest of the 17 muskies the Burmeks displayed in Hayward.

On the eighth day Fred was on his approach again to Milwaukee. With the barometer at 30, highest of the complete interval, Tony went alone to the sprawling Chippewa flowage — the well-known “Large Chip” identified to muskie madmen from many states. It holds the world muskie file, a 69 pound 11 ounce fish taken in October of 1949, and is among the nice muskie-producing waters of the continent.

Utilizing the identical plug and system to fish over the Church Bars of the flowage, Tony caught and launched a bit one. Then he motored to the narrows, took a 30-pounder, and was again in Hayward by supper-time.

At this juncture Tony was wishing he had 100 all-out muskie fishermen with him. “I’d have assigned them to completely different lakes,” he says, “so we might nm an actual take a look at. I believe the muskies had been hitting in all places.”

Once more alone on the ninth day, Tony tried Lac Court docket Oreilles, a 4,827-acre lake well-known among the many muskie devoted since earlier than the flip of the century. There was six inches of snow on the bottom. Tony remembers that day very effectively: “There’s a degree on this lake — Winter’s Level — and it regarded prefer it was named proper that day. I drifted throughout the purpose as soon as, hooked and launched a small one. On the subsequent drift I took a 27-pounder.”

That evening there was a tough freeze and on the next day Tony didn’t fish. However he was again on the muskie bars the subsequent day, this time with Clayton (Sergeant) Slack, flowage resort operator, for a associate.

Over Andres Bar, Slack took a 38¾­ pound muskie. Tony launched one hooked off Muskie Level and on the subsequent drift throughout the identical level boated a 28-pounder.

By now Hayward was buzzing, if not seething, over the incredible Burmek marketing campaign. The nightly weighing on the normal retailer was drawing onlookers like a circus sideshow. Burmek muskies had been displayed on ice within the glass case on the Moccasin Bar. And folks had been speaking. A number of thought Tony may be violating the legislation by having too many fish “in possession,”   the possession restrict being just one muskie a day. However Tony — and Fred, too — gave away every day’s trophy earlier than going after an­ different. Some skeptics nonetheless thought the Burmek haul was the results of some mysterious and unsporting system. Nonetheless, most individuals, amongst them George Curran, state recreation supervisor at Hayward, merely accepted it as a run of fine luck by persistent and knowledgeable muskie fishermen.

On the eleventh day the barometer was rising. Once more Slack was Tony’s associate and once more they fished the massive circulate­ age. Within the first hour Tony launched three fish. He thinks one weighed about 20 kilos. Then he hooked and shot a 28½-pounder.

He and Slack went ashore for lunch. Again at it once more within the afternoon, Slack hooked and misplaced a extremely huge one. Tony doesn’t understand how huge it was. He by no means noticed it. Slack saved on casting and earlier than the tip of the afternoon boated a 37½­ pounder.

At this level the Burmek diary will get about as emotional because the Burmek diary will get. Tony recorded: “Slack was beside himself with pleasure.”

Tony was getting drained. The day by day routine of bucking wind and waves, the fixed chilly, the moist, cracked fingers, the bleeding knuckles — all had been taking their toll.

Tony didn’t need to exit that closing, twelfth day. However Slack was keyed up and Tony agreed to 1 hour of fishing, no extra. It was so chilly they welcomed possibilities to commerce off casting and heat up with the oars. Slack’s younger son was with them and it obtained too chilly for him to fish. The hour handed however Slack persuaded Tony to remain a bit longer.

The subsequent and closing fish of the journey was caught by Tony. It weighed 431/s kilos, largest muskie of the season within the Hayward area.

Last rating was 17 muskies boated in 12 days. The boys launched 22 and counted a complete of 42 that struck, both to be killed, misplaced, or launched.

It’s not laborious in Hayward right now to seek out individuals who query the Burmek feats in a method or one other. Tony’s personal good status is the perfect reply to those that whisper. I’ve to go together with Tony, figuring out him as I do.

Tony and Fred had a whole lot of issues on their aspect. They know these waters. They know easy methods to make a plug run the gamut of its potentialities — shallow, deep, gradual, quick, side-to-side, up-and­down. They’d the muskie grounds nearly totally to themselves, and that’s necessary. These had been fish that hadn’t been showered with {hardware} day in, day trip. And the fish had been clearly on the feed simply earlier than the freeze-up.

Most necessary of all, the Burmeks had the good thing about Tony’s 20-odd years of devotion to the game. A person like Tony Burmek develops a information of fish and fishing that he finds troublesome to transmit to others.

Muskies do queer issues. They go for lengthy intervals with out putting after which go on rampages. At Chicago’s Shedd aquarium, which Wisconsin retains provided with muskies for show, they’ve had captive muskies that refused to eat for six months, nonetheless remained apparently wholesome, lastly started to eat.

“Ten thousand casts for one strike,” is the previous and acquainted catch phrase of the muskie fan. However that sample can change violently, as witness the efficiency at Leech Lake, Minnesota, final summer time. There muskies had been boated by the rating in water which had by no means in dwelling reminiscence produced such fishing. The Leech Lake spree has by no means been defined by biologists; they simply understand it occurred.

To any extent further Tony Burmek shall be a marked man in Hayward muskie nation. When he clicks — and he’ll — folks will say, “In spite of everything, this man is a professional. All he does is fish for muskies.” If he flops — and he’ll do this too — the Monday-morning quarterbacks of mus­kie fishing can have a tremendous time. Luckily for Tony, he has the disposition of a pleasant St. Bernard pup, and underlying that, in nice depth, he’s as stolid as a clam.

I requested him if he thought he might duplicate final autumn’s efficiency. “Maybe not,” he mentioned. I requested if he was simply fortunate. “Sure, very fortunate — however I’ve all the time been fortunate fishing for muskies.”

Tony additionally is aware of the weak spots within the offense of the informal muskie fisher­ man: “They use rods which can be tremendous for bass, no good for hooking muskies. You want a stiff rod for muskies. And many individuals get so connected to their gear they overlook concerning the fish. Watch a fellow with a flowery multiplying reel. He’ll get right into a casting rut, like a hypnotized man. The man casts and retrieves, casts and retrieves — identical motions, identical speeds, identical distance of casts.

“Factor to do is strive all the pieces within the ebook. Solid brief and solid lengthy. Reel quick and reel gradual, with rod excessive, rod low. And as you crank, manipulate the rod, up and down, backwards and forwards. Do all the pieces you possibly can consider to present the plug variation.

“One other factor — too many muskie fishermen stick with the shoreline. Discover the bars out within the center and work them over. You don’t simply fish these bars. You discover them.

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“When you get a roll out of fish, toss out a marker on a sinker and are available again in an hour. Typically a fast change of lures will provoke a muskie into an­ different sprint. I take advantage of little cork floats for this objective, laborious to see within the waves, however then I don’t need others to see them and take a look at for a fish I’ve roused.”

And, lastly, Tony has this to say: “Autumn is way and away the perfect time. The muskie fisherman who’s prepared to exit and work by means of tough water and climate will do all proper.”