Fishing for trophy muskies is all about the eat — that moment of ambush when a big fish finally commits and hammers your lure. These strikes can be savage, and they rarely happen when you’re expecting them to. But every so often, you might get lucky and catch one on camera up close. Connor Norgrove did, in a cast-to-catch video he shared to Instagram, and it’s one of the most badass muskie videos you’ll ever see.
The clip shows a nearly 50-inch muskie hitting a big, flashy bait from just a rod’s length away. Norgrove is halfway through an abbreviated figure eight when the giant fish emerges from the green depths to smash his lure.
“That may have been the sickest eat I’ve ever had,” Norgove tells Outdoor Life. “It literally appeared from under the raft out of nowhere. This is why you always have to be prepared when muskie fishing, because it can happen on any cast.”
Norgrove, who lives in Ohio, was out on the river that afternoon with his girlfriend, Olivia Bower. It was July 6, the day before his 22nd birthday, and they were fishing from his 9.5-foot raft. He says they’d been out for around four hours and hadn’t moved a single fish. Which sounds about right for a short muskie outing.
Using a custom Blue Ridge musky rod and a baitcaster spooled with 80-pound braid and a steel leader, Norgrove was throwing an Angry Dragon, a flashy, extra-long bait with a heavy duty blade. After working the lure back to the boat, he’d trace a figure eight, a classic technique where the angler uses the rod tip to swirl the lure just off the side of their boat. Muskies will often follow a lure a ways without biting, and this final, erratic movement can sometimes be just enough to trigger the fish.
“I typically do classic figure eights, but I was in such a tight area with the tree in the way, that I could only get away with a circle,” Norgrove says. “Luckily that’s all I needed for the big girl to commit.”
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Because the fish ate so close to his raft, Norgrove didn’t have to play it for long. With his drag tight, he kept the big muskie up and thrashing on the surface, until Bower could get there with the landing net. She went full extension, stretching out as far as she could to reach out and scoop the fish. It’s an impressive net job, and Bower gets more props in the comment section than Norgrove does for hooking the fish.
“I’m not sure where she learned those netting skills because mine aren’t anywhere close to that,” Norgrove says. “But I am lucky and blessed to have someone who loves to fish with me and share these awesome memories.”
In a separate Instagram post featuring the same fish, the two anglers included a video of the big muskie being measured before its release. The fish stretched to 49¼ inches, just three-quarters of an inch shy of the magic 50-inch mark. Norgrove says it’s the biggest muskie he’s caught in eight years of casting for the freshwater giants.
“Still searching for that 50,” he says. “The grind definitely continues.”
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