WONDERS NEVER CEASE
Naperville man pulls 34- to 36- inch muskie from Lake Michigan
Picture a muskie being caught on the Chicago lakefront. ‘‘ I had some woman come up to me with a baby to take a selfie,’’ Greg Remec said. ‘‘ Not what you run into in the North Woods. It was just so crazy.’’
Remec was fishing for steelhead and coho April 8 by the Adler Planetarium when he caught and released a last- cast muskie of 34 to 36 inches.
Remec started by casting spoons and hard- body baits, then switched to a Storm Wild Eye Swim Shad in search of a smallmouth.
On his last cast, he latched into something bigger than a smallie about 20 feet off shore. The battle raged with multiple long runs.
‘‘ I really thought I had foul- hooked something, tail- hooked a carp or something,’’ Remec said. ‘‘ It shocked the hell out of me.’’ As it should have. ‘‘ When I saw that profile, I thought, ‘ That is no northern [ pike]; that is a muskie,’ ’’ he said. ‘‘ I was just blown away.’’
He had another consideration.
‘‘ I was really worried [ because] I had got a foul in my line earlier and snipped it out and tied a blood knot,’’ Remec said.
His line held, and fishing buddy Joe Hansen, a friend from their University of Illinois days, landed it fine and got it on video.
‘‘ By that time, we had a nice audience,’’ Remec said.
He lives in Naperville, but he can see where he was fishing from where he works downtown as a financial analyst.
He rushed to get the muskie released, and it swam off after a few seconds. What does it mean? It looks like a Great Lakes spotted muskie, Lake Michigan program manager Vic Santucci emailed. He added a note of caution.
‘‘ One fish does not a population rebound make,’’ he emailed. ‘‘ My best guess is that this muskie is a traveler from somewhere in the Great Lakes, possibly Green Bay.’’
Or an escapee from a stocked inland lake.
‘‘ A third option would be an illegal stocking of spotted- muskie fingerlings in the lake or a tributary to the lake,’’ Santucci emailed. ‘‘ Personally, I don’t believe any of our angler groups would do something like that. They understand the low for age issues we are dealing with in Lake Michigan, which makes adding a new predator species a poor idea right now.’’
Add muskie to an alltime fishing spring on the Chicago lakefront.
In memory
A celebration of Mike Repa, the longtime counter man at Park Bait, will be held from 2 p. m. to 5 p. m. Saturday at Journey Care Atrium in Glenview. The eulogy begins at 3 p. m.
Wild things
Wild asparagus, goslings, morels, blooming lilacs and wildflowers— what a week outside. I’m sure Brian Schlenger and I weren’t the only ones to double- down Monday on morels and wild asparagus, the earliest ever for both of us.
Stray cast
Maybe Spro can come up with a Cubs World Series commemorative frog. You know, two- faced with tiny diamonds for eyes, ready to be hopped or pulled back.