REXBURG — Salt Lake City native David Plowman never imagined he’d catch what he did recently.
Plowman, who was in Rexburg camping at Wakeside Lake, thought he’d go out for a nice fishing session under the sun. What happened next shocked him.
With his 6-pound test line, Plowman reeled in a 41-inch tiger muskie (a cross between a muskie and a northern pike) while fishing on the south side of the lake.
“I thought I had a whale,” he said. “It caught me by surprise. It rolled and I knew I had something big. I figured that was what it was. It took a while to get it in.”
Plowman certainly had caught much more than he bargained for. He had only planned on catching bass. He even had to call his wife, Kathy, to help him bring the fish back to their camper on the north side of the lake.
“I caught this on the same lure I was catching bass on,” Plowman said. “It’s the biggest fish I ever caught.
Wakeside Lake has been stocked with tiger muskie for a few years now and is also stocked with trout and largemouth and smallmouth bass. Tiger muskies will occasionally come up and eat bass when fishermen are luring them in, said camp host Vern Muir.
“We knew they were out there, but very few people have hooked them. They’re a tough fish to catch,” Muir said. “They eat anything that wiggles.”
Plowman didn’t have a scale to weigh his fish, but when it comes to the length, his fish wasn’t too far off of being a record-breaker. The world record for a tiger muskie is 52.5 inches, and it was also caught in Idaho.
That tiger muskie was landed by New Meadows resident Edward Kalinowski in Little Payette Lake in 2013.
Plowman said he has enjoyed vacationing in Rexburg.
“We saw Wakeside Lake on the Internet and liked what we saw. We’re enjoying being here and the fact we can fish with the lake right here. Rexburg is a nice city,” Plowman said.
The fate of the fish had yet to be determined, although Plowman said the likeliest scenario is that he mounts it on a wall.