Saturday, January 07, 2012

Anything Goes Saturday, Giant Muskie!

Welcome to beautiful Nevis, Minnesota (sometime in the 1950's)! Minnesota is the "Land of 10,000 lakes" (actually closer to 12,000), so fishing is a big part of life there. My dad was born in Austin (home of Spam), and I spent plenty of wonderful summers with my grandparents on various lakes angling for perch, walleye, bass, and northern pike. But I never caught a mighty muskellunge (aka "muskie")! If you have ever seen one of these large, fearsome fish in person, you will know just how forbidding their appearance is - and at up to 5 feet long for truly huge specimens, they are an "apex" predator... humans are the only threat to an adult muskie.


This wonderful display of a "Tiger Muskie" (a cross between a northern pike and a muskellunge) is a piece of Americana that really appeals to me. Who wouldn't love a giant muskie as long as a bus? "Come on honey, any jerk can see Niagara Falls, let's go to Nevis!". You'll find similar oversized fish in other towns throughout the state.


This lady looks like she's all ready to spend some quality time at the lake. I hope she got to catch fish, and not just cook them. She should definitely prepare for "skeeters". Leeches are an added bonus, there's nothing like wading in a lake and finding a couple of leeches stuck to your legs.


Happily, the giant tiger muskie can still be found in Nevis, although he has had a facelift (or paint job, or whatever you want to call it), and he now has a roof over his head.


I hope you have enjoyed your visit to Nevis, Minnesota!

8 comments:

Nanook said...

I'm not certain which one I like best: the Muskie or the fabulous 'babe' sporting that very rakish hairdo. (Or is it merely a bad hair day for her-?...)

TokyoMagic! said...

That lady looks like she'd be a fun person to know! Is that a Brownie camera that she's holding?

Vintage Disneyland Tickets said...

Muskie's modern paint job looks wrong (did he hire Montro's painter?) but uber-cool he's still there!

Connie Moreno said...

This was GREAT! That lady looks adorable!! And so does the giant fish, in a fishy kinda way.

HBG2 said...

Boy, I can relate. Lots of Minnesota family connections, and we used to vacation there when I was a kid. There aren't very many things more fun (to me) than snagging a nice big Northern Pike on a lure. Never got a Muskie, though.

annevismous said...

"We're gonna need a bigger boat"

Chiana_Chat said...

If you'd told me you caught a fish that big I'd say you were telling me a fish story. And I'd be right.

JG said...

Great pictures, pretty lady. We had a camera like that one, along with about 20 million other people.

Really nice, Major. See, you don't need Disneyland to draw a crowd.

JG