TrollDHL

Will Renfro enjoyed a taste of what could be in store for musky anglers at Dale Hollow Lake as a result of the new size limits put in place March 1. 

The minimum length for musky, also known as muskellunge, kept at Dale Hollow and Melton Hill (Oak Ridge) increased from 44 to 50 inches in an effort to add to the number of trophy fish in the lakes. Only one fish may be kept daily.

Renfro, 27, from Franklin, caught a 50-inch musky last week while trolling with guide David Clark and enjoyed the fight of his life landing the big female.

“I had only seen musky caught up north and in Canada on TV and in magazines,” Renfro said. “When I hooked it I knew what was on the end of the line and my heart was about to beat out of my chest. With it being a musky it was the fish of 10,000 casts, because it’s so rare to catch one. It put up a great fight, even better than I expected.”

State wildlife officials want to see more big fish caught in hopes of attracting more anglers to Tennessee. That would mean additional funds from license sales.

“We have the opportunity in Dale Hollow and Melton Hill to manage those as trophy musky fisheries,” said Jason Henegar, rivers and streams coordinator for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. “We’ve seen that draws anglers from a lot of the northern states because we don’t have the ice-out conditions they have up north.”

It took Renfro 10 minutes to land the musky after hooking it with an artificial lure on 20-pound mono line in 27 feet of water in the middle section of the lake near Goat Island.

After Clark measured the female (her girth was 30 inches), which had eggs, and snapped a picture, she was released.

The state record musky is 42 pounds, 8 ounces, caught in Norris Reservoir in 1983, according to the TWRA. The world record is 69 pounds, 11 ounces, caught in Chippewa Flowage, Wis., in 1949, according to the International Game Fish Association.

Clark is confident Renfro’s fish weighed at least 50 pounds and would have been a state record. To qualify for the record, however, the fish had to be weighed on certified scales and Clark wasn’t willing to put it through that trauma, which likely would have killed it.

“When I take people out I set the rules from the beginning and that’s absolute catch-and-release on all smallmouth bass and musky,” Clark said. “With Will’s fish there’s something that allowed her to grow that big. She’s either smarter, faster, or stronger — there’s just something in the gene pool. She was full of eggs and keeping her would have ended that line. To me that’s just not right.”