Tigers

This last weekend I drove with Danny Kurttila to Utah in search of tiger muskies. You may ask, why would someone drive all the way to Utah to catch a tiger muskie. Simply because Wyoming only has one body of water with tigers and it has only a limited quantity.

So, we drove to Utah all night Friday night after work and fished Saturday and Sunday. I must admit, it was a little crazy staying up from 7:00 am on Friday till 2:00 pm on Saturday. The long hours paid off though.

We put in to the lake at 5:30 am and began to fish. I had a fish hit on my second cast and had another follow my lure to the boat only a couple casts later. I set the hook on that fish but didn't get a good hookup and he tore loose. At 6:30 Danny caught a nice 31" tiger. It was a really nice fish.

At 7:30 I hooked up with a nice 33" tiger and managed to land him. That was my first tiger ever, boy was I excited! A few casts later I caught a nice 34" tiger and he flat went crazy. It was all I could do to not have him tie me up in the trolling motor.

A few hours later I landed another 34" tiger and this fish should have cut my line. I had a 12" titanium leader on my line but he wrapped the line around his body and my 30 lb. superline was stuck in his teeth. Danny and I both thought he would break the line but somehow he didn't. I did have to re-tie though.

After that I had a lot more follows and hits but couldn't land any of them. We finally gave up and went to the hotel to rest up.

The next morning we got up at 3:45 and were on the water at 4:30. I caught a 17.5" largemouth bass right away and released him. Then the fish stopped biting until Danny caught one at 8:30 am. It was another really nice 31" tiger.

Almost five minutes after Danny caught his 31" tiger I caught a nice 34" Tiger in almost the same spot. The fish followed my bait to the boat and finally managed to hit the bait on his fourth swipe. Talk about an adrenaline rush!

We didn't catch any more fish after that but we had a great time. So, if you are wanting to catch a tiger muskie here in Wyoming, make sure you write the game and fish and let them know. Otherwise they won't stock them.

Good luck out there!