The Magic Number

Every musky angler has his or her personal goals when it comes to musky fishing. If it’s just catching your first musky, catching a musky on a certain lure or on a specific lake. John Vogeler is a realtor in the Alexandria area and an avid musky fisherman. His dad Bill got him into musky fishing at a very young age. John says his dad loved to take their family out fishing, “There is a tremendous rush when you either catch a musky or just have one going on a figure eight. We call it musky fever. Some of my favorite memories have been with our family on the water for the day.”

Regarding the “magic number” John says, “Whatever one’s goals are, I would say almost every avid musky angler has the goal to catch a musky that surpasses 50 inches. (The Magic Number)” Most anglers can spend a lifetime trying to catch a musky that puts you in this elite category.

Over the past few years, John’s fiancé Karly Betterman has put hours upon hours in and cast upon cast. On a recent October outing, everything lined up for her; right spot, right time, right conditions.

Karly works as a nurse and they were waiting for her to get some time off, and for the weather conditions to cooperate. John explains, “We had about 2 hours of sunlight left so we decided to go back on a spot that we marked a few muskies earlier in the day on side imaging. Sure enough, not even 30 minutes into our drift we hear the line counter start to tick. We both look back and the bobber is down and heading to the deep. We start to position the boat over the fish ready for the chaos to begin. Karly got ready and set the hook as hard as she could! After an intense battle and me yelling “reel, reel, reel!” we got this BEAST into the net! We both looked into the net and were amazed at what just took place. We knew this was a special fish. With quick action, we got measurements, pictures and sent this monster back home.”

Karly’s musky measured in at 51.25” x 21.” Karly’s first musky successfully landed was two years in the making and definitely a fish of a lifetime. Congrats again Karly! Well deserved. The couple will officially “catch” one another when they get married next October.