A young woman's monster musky would have made the Minnesota record books, but the anglers were more concerned with getting the big fish back into the water.
She may not have the official record, but 23-year-old Kelsey Poshusta's gigantic musky is getting plenty of press and she has an eye-popping photograph to prove that her fish was an absolute beast.
Poshusta hooked the behemoth on July 2 while fishing Lake Mille Lacs with her family.
"The running joke in my family was I'm the only one who hadn't caught one," she said.
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Poshusta was fishing a black-and-gold 12-inch crankbait when the musky hit. "And then all of a sudden you just hear the buzz of the line go zzzzzz," she said. "It took about 15 minutes, 20 minutes to reel it in. At the end I was like, 'Dad I need help.' He turned to me, he was like, 'No, you've got this. It's all you.'"
"I said, 'Someone get a camera on this thing, it's huge,'" said Derek Poshusta, Kelsey's father.
Derek netted his daughter's fish, measured it and took some photos, and then returned it to the water.
"Our main concern was let's get that fish back in the water," Derek Poshusta said.
He measured the fish with a combination of measuring board and tape measure at 57.25 inches in length and a 26.75 inch girth.
Mike Kurre, state records fish coordinator for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, estimated the fish to weigh at least 57 pounds.
Kurre said, "That is one tremendous muskie. The girth on it is tremendous. That would be a record in anybody's record book."
If the Poshusta's had weighed the fish on a certified scale they would have come close to or broken the Minnesota weight record musky, which currently stands at a 56 pound, 54 inch long, 27.75 inch girth fish caught on Lake Winnibigoshish in Itasca County.
They surely would have beaten the state's current Catch and Release record, caught last year by Andrew Slette. Slette's fish went 56 7/8 inches in length with a 25.5 inch girth and was caught on Pelican Lake in Otter Tail County.
But the Poshusta's did not have documentation or photographs of the fish next to a full length tape measure or measuring board.
Poshusta said she isn't concerned about the record book recognition. The family is just happy to have returned the monster to the lake and have one heckuva fish story to tell.
"I did also catch a 27 inch walleye later that afternoon," she said. "So it was a good fishing day."
"This is a world class fish that will put on 10 more pounds in the next two months," Derek said. "I believe we will have a 60 pound fish in Mille Lacs by November and now someone else has the opportunity to catch it."
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NEXT: Man Stands in Cold Water for Hours Waiting for His Record Musky to be Verified
