Fisheries biologists began cross-breeding muskies and northern pike back in the mid-1960s. The process produces a hybrid predator with a voracious appetite for baitfish that can grow to staggering lengths. Known as tiger muskies, the fish are now sought-after trophies stocked by state game agencies as a way to control unwanted species in lakes and other waterways. Earlier this summer, a Montana angler caught a 45.2-inch tiger muskie that was recently confirmed as the longest on record by the International Gamefish Association (IGFA).
Daniel Caricaburu-Lundin caught the giant hybrid fish on Montana’s Ackley Lake, a 226-acre impoundment near the center of the state. He was fishing from a kayak with a glide bait he made himself when the giant struck.
“I’ve got a friend who's been chasing and catching a lot of IGFA records, and he happened to have this record before I beat it,” Lundin tells F&S. “We recently fished for tigers down in New Mexico in a lake called Blue Waters where a lot of the tiger muskie records have come out of. The whole time I was thinking, I know we’ve got bigger ones back in Montana.”
After that New Mexico trip, Lundin says he made it his mission to break an IGFA record for the species. On the morning of May 20, 2024, he was so confident he'd claim a top spot in the IGFA books that he announced his intentions on Facebook. “I’m not looking for a fish today. I’m looking for the fish,” the caption read, alongside a photo of an official IGFA measuring device next to his handmade lure.
Lundin says he spotted the big tiger with a live scope shortly after launching his kayak and immediately tossed his 8-inch glide bait into the fish's line of sight. The bait is one of several models that Lundin makes in his garage and sells through his small online shop Click-Bait Customs. “It was a raw resin bait,” he says. “It didn’t have any paint on it or anything.”
A fellow fisherman happened to be driving by as Lundin hooked up with the record-setting fish, he recalls, and the angler got out of his vehicle to help. “He was a fishing guide who was going for the fly record out there, and the fish jumped out of the water right as he pulled up” Lundin says. “He and his buddy helped hold it in the water while I got everything ready with the measuring device. I don’t think I could have done it without them and still safely released the fish.”
With the fish back in the Ackley Lake and plenty of photos and videos as proof of his catch, Lundin headed for home. On the way, he called the IGFA to make sure he'd properly recorded the measurements. "They said it all looked good, and then I didn't hear another word out of them for about three months."
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Confirmation of his all-tackle length record for tiger muskie didn't come until earlier this month when the IGFA published a blog post about a handful of world records that anglers across the country have toppled this summer. "I had no idea it had been confirmed until people started calling me up to ask about it because they saw that post on the IGFA website," he says. "I was excited to get the record, but I think catching it on one of my own lures was the coolest part of the whole thing."
