When it comes to fishing, Mundelein resident Tony Hernandez says he’s been hooked on catching muskies “since I was 21, which seems about as long as I can remember.”
“It’s compelling. I used to fish for everything and then I caught a muskie and that was pretty much it,” Hernandez said at the three-day Muskie Expo Chicago held at the Kane County Fairgrounds last Friday to Sunday. “The thrill of it – the chase of it – especially when you get a big one.”
Mike Veserat, of Madison, Wisconsin, who serves as president and owner of the Muskie Expo, said the event has been held since 1988 and includes two shows a year including the one in St. Charles as well as in West Bend, Wisconsin, near Milwaukee next month from Feb. 14 to 16.
He said the show first came to Kane County in 2019 and has continued with just one interruption since.
“We’ve been in Kane County in 2019, and again in 2020, and then COVID hit,” he said. “We resumed in 2022. It’s always been a three-day event and we usually average about 3,000 to 5,000 people who are primarily catch-and-release fishermen.”
Illinois, Veserat said, permits fishing year-round but noted that things really ramp up in May.
“It may seem like it would make more sense to have this show closer to the unofficial start of the fishing season but there’d be nobody here,” Veserat said. “The majority of the guys who are doing this kind of fishing in May are playing golf in April.”
Veserat said the expo is “the biggest muskie show in the Chicagoland area.”
“This is the largest fresh water apex predator in North America. This is a sportsman’s sport. We don’t catch muskie and eat muskie. We catch it and let them go,” he said. “We are building a new group of fishermen. The age of those attending the shows has dropped considerably over the last eight years since I took it over. To get younger kids interested, I offer free admission for 16 and under.”
Veserat noted the growth of interest in the sport isn’t so much from fathers or grandfathers teaching a younger generation about it. Instead, he credits YouTube.
“These sportsmen that are videotaping their catches of their hunt – for lack of a better word – there’s some really incredible videos out there and a lot of those guys are here at our show,” he said.
Hernandez showed off some bulldog lures he had purchased, something that nearly everyone was interested in buying regardless of the brand or style.
Brian Redpath of Peoria was also seen with lures in a bag and said he has come to the show at least 10 times.
“I’ve been fishing for muskie like 40 years. My brother and I got into it together as kids,” Redpath explained. “For me, it’s just the hunt for the big fish. I probably go out three weeks a year from July into November and take my vacations and go do that. I’ve got as many as six or seven in a day. Catching them is much more difficult than panfish, or course, and it depends on the body of water you’re on.”
Cal Ritchie from Ontario, Canada, was on hand at the expo working for vendor Shakey Baits and said these days he works as a guide helping others to catch muskie.
Over three days, he predicted the vendor would sell “over 1,000 lures.”
“I’ve been in this sport 30 years and for people who tried to learn this on their own it would take a lot of time,” he said. “You can’t just throw a pole in the water and get lucky. It’s a lot of casts and the right structure and the points and the way the wind’s blowing and the right baits and the right time.
“The thrill of the chase keeps this popular,” he said.
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
