I Hooked the BIGGEST Musky of My Life!!

I have a new obsession, and it is actually making me have nightmares at night! Musky fishing is now in my blood and it has been driving me absolutely crazy. My friend Alex invited me to head to Quebec, Canada on a last minute trip to fish the Ottawa river with his friends Andrew and Darian. Both of these guys are Quebec residents and are muskie guides. They fish this river almost daily and have caught over a hundred fish since May, which is impressive as hell. 

I hooked into and then proceeded to lose the biggest musky that I'll ever probably see. Andrew guessed that it was anywhere from 50 to 53 inches, which is a GIANT! It was devastating, and honestly I didn't really understand how big it actually was until I saw what a 43 incher looked like. If you don't understand what the big deal is about losing this fish, well to put it in perspective, fisherman all over the world call the muskie the fish of 10,000 casts. These freshwater fish are elusive, and people fish all their lives trying to catch a 50 incher. I was what you may consider lucky to even get the opportunity to lay my eyes on a fish at that caliber. 

What happened is when I set my hook I set it to my forehead and not towards the tail end, which is what I should have done. These fish have super tough jaws, so I should have set the hook hard as hell and kept move the fish around with my rod. This would have ensured a solid hook; however, I didn't do that and within 3 seconds the fish was gone. Honestly, I was upset, but it was the first time in my life that a musky actually hit my bait. I am so new to muskie fishing that I kinda froze unsure what to do next, which sucks. 

I guess I still have 5,000 casts to go....