This June marks the 14th consecutive year Josh Gagne and his father James have fished LCI Father’s Day Derby On Lake Champlain. The two Vermonters almost had to break tradition when they completed their boat two weeks before the tournament. But after purchasing and rigging a new hull, they were ready for its maiden voyage on 20 June. The next day he christened it his first muskie, and one of the largest ever caught in Vermont.
“When we got (the fish) into the boat, it was laying lengthwise off the starboard stern and almost touching the other side,” says Josh. “It was absolutely surreal.”
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Conditions were miserable that weekend, Josh says, with a series of storms moving in. On the first day, Saturday, they ran four-foot rollers to target walleye, northern pike and smallmouth bass on the Vermont side of the Champlain. He lost a nine-pound walleye over the side of the boat, but later caught an eight-pound northern.
On Sunday, they went into deeper water to troll. Running at a steady pace of two miles per hour, he used a volley setup with 10-pound test and rapala floating minnow He is up to about 15 feet tall. Keeping one eye on the fish finder, they swam in 25 feet of water, keeping their nets 10 feet above the bottom.
“Suddenly, one of the rods tilted right over and started screaming, and I looked at my dad and said, ‘We’ve reached the bottom.’ But then I looked at the fish finder and thought, ‘Okay, we shouldn’t find a bottom,'” Josh says. “So my dad picked up the rod and we could see some heads moving on the rod.”
As he turned back to find their net, the fish jumped four feet out of the water. Josh heard a splashing noise – it sounded like a beaver’s tail slapping – and saw a large whirlpool on the surface where the fish had reentered. Looking at the size of the fish’s sides, James thought he had either the world’s largest pike or a trophy muskie.
When the fish ran straight towards the boat, they saw a huge head of muskrat with the crankbait stuck in its jaws. James held the rod tip just off the surface. He was very scared to lift it with such a light line.
“He held it right there, and we walked it like a dog on a leash for about half a mile,” says Josh, who was now ready with the salmon net. “Then we were in a dilemma, when we realized the fish was about five feet long… I looked at my dad and said, ‘Our net isn’t big enough for it.'”
By that time, Josh had called his uncle (James’ brother), who was fishing in the same derby and was only 10 minutes away. He had caught some muskies before and gave them some tips on how to fish. So Josh put the head of the fish in the net, while James took hold of its tail, and together they hoisted the big fish over the gunnel and into the boat.
“My uncle, he actually made it for us when we were putting the fish in the boat… and when he saw it, he said, ‘Oh my God, that’s the biggest oyster I’ve ever seen.’
Vermont has strict rules around oysters and requires that each fish be released as quickly as possible. So both fishermen worked quickly to get the fish on their hand scale, which weighed 40.94 pounds. Josh says the fish was only out of the water for a few minutes, and he watched it swim to the bottom of Lake Champlain after being released.
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That weight would have easily broken Gagne’s oyster. current status record 38 pounds 3.5 ounces, owned by Chris Beebe. But since Vermont strictly prohibits the retention of muskets and requires all possible records Weighed on a certified scale and harvested for inspection by a biologist, Beebe’s record is essentially untouched.
“It wasn’t even an eligible species for the tournament,” says Josh. “But there is no doubt in my mind that it was the biggest fish caught during the derby.”
