MINNEAPOLIS — We all know people who are enthusiastic about their hobbies.
Sometimes... TOO enthusiastic.
It would probably be fair to say that 15-year-old Jack Moe is somewhere in between. His dad Mike says Jack is "obsessed" with fishing - if he's not actually putting a line in the water, the young angler is watching videos of huge fish and how to catch them on YouTube.
On Monday Jack was taking advantage of the freedom afforded by summer vacation and wandered down to Lake Nokomis in search of a monster - the city lakes are well known for holding huge fish, especially muskies. He threw out a sucker minnow and let it lay at the bottom of the lake.
It wasn't long before Jack noticed line being pulled off his reel, and by the time he grabbed the rod and picked it up whatever was on the other end was swimming away from shore at full speed.
As his dad shares the story, Jack set the hook and furiously reeled his catch in, fighting the entire way. A fellow fisherman jumped in with a large muskie net, which was appropriate... on the hook was a 40-inch muskellunge, the first one Jack had ever caught.
Mike Moe said his son called him at work - "ecstatic," he recalls - and told him the entire fish story. He shared that Jack had told him Sunday night “I think I’m gonna go try to catch a tiger muskie tomorrow… I think it’s easier than regular muskie.“
Jack's dad also shared that the muskie marks the biggest catch of Jack's young fishing career. He did spend a bunch of hours on the piers at Lake Harriet last summer and managed to reel in a northern pike that was about 38 inches or so. Since he is a Minneapolis kid, a lot of the fishing Jack does is on the city lakes, be it Nokomis, Harriet, Lake of the Isles or Bde Maka Ska.
Mike Moe says all the money his son makes working at Davanni's, walking dogs and doing odd jobs goes to buying rods, reels and tackle. When winter rolls around Jack is an avid snowboarder, but he also gets out and fishes through the ice whenever he can.
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