Over the past few years, we’ve made some acquaintances in the fishing world that we are happy to share with you. When people think of the great names in the musky world you often hear names like Saric or Maina, but we know that every musky community out there has all stars that are not known, yet! We had the opportunity to speak to Martin Berube. Martin has been one of the recognizable musky anglers in our local area for a few years and seems to take more space with every passing year.

Martin has been involved with Muskies Canada for some time, and is now an executive member of his local chapter. He has been hunting muskies for a dedicated 7 years now.

“I have been fishing muskellunge since the age of 20. I was a pike fisherman until then and considered muskies to be only a game of luck..lol

I developed a passion for these fish thanks to a specialised musky store not far from my house. I spent countless hours learning their habitat, habits, diets, etc”

Today Martin has won several MC tournaments as well several local catch and release musky tournaments. He is now a very well respected angler amongst his peers. You can find Martin as a member of several fishing communities online such as Bountyfishing.com or Quebecpeche.com.

Recently, Mr.Berube has realised one of his dreams, he is now an active member of a fishing show. The show, Pecheenligne.net, has been running for a couple years now and Martin is the latest addition to the cast on camera. This is quite an achievement for a young man of his age and it proves again that dreams do come true.

But as far as we are concerned, what makes us want to write or talk about him the most? It’s simple, the fish!

He catches big ones, and you know what? He remains calm and cool about it, no ego bashing with Martin, down to earth and loves to fish!

 These are all very impressive fish, these are what musky anglers wish for.

Not long ago, we got a report that a local tournament was going on and that Martin had cleaned house again! It was a difficult day on the water and out of all the anglers on the water I believe only 8 fish had been boated and 4 of those being from Martin. We asked Martin how the day went:

“For a few years now, I am very passionate of anything that involves fishing but more specifically, musky! I am an active member of Muskies Canada and try to do my part in promoting proper catch catch and release and hopefully see more stockings.

Each chapter has an official tournament in order to finance the organisation’s activities. We all participate in hopes to win the famous “Mike The mover”, which is a nice carved piece of glass with a musky on it.

I won last year’s Hawkesbury tournament with a 51x22 and 3 other fish boated that day, but I never believed winning this year’s local tournament with first, second and third place prizes all in the same tournament!

The evening before the tournament I sit down with my charts and come up with a game plan. I always proceed this way for a tournament or if I am fishing a new body of water. I locate a maximum of 4 areas that I think can provide big females. I then have to simply follow through with my plan! I was with a good friend of mine, Maxime Gilbert who was a big fan of pecheenligne.net and with Andrew Murphy. Andrew is a young man around 15 years old who had asked me to help him participate in a MC tournament for Hawkesbury via the web, but since I was full for that one it wasn’t meant to be. When my boss cancelled for the local tournament it opened up a spot for Andrew to join us.

To start, I wanted to go where I believed we had the best chance of winning the tournament right away, with my highest confidence spot. It was 10am and still not one hit but I was still confident in the pattern I was running as I am very familiar with it this time of year. Depths of 12 to 20 feet deep with lures covering all ranges, even for the suspended ones.

The second spot was where the fun began with a structure holding two deep holes that are always productive for me this time of year. In fact I have never returned empty handed from this spot in the fall, as a matter of fact FISH ON! I always want my guests to be the ones to reel in the fish as I get more joy out of watching them catch a fish then keeping them all for myself. After a ferocious fight worthy of the species, Andrew had just boated his first musky of his fishing career with a 49x21! The 50 inch club was not far. Following that fish many boats started closing in on us, so I moved away from it.

The third spot made us laugh with my smallest musky ever, a 19 incher! (A.k.a JOBINER special) It was then 1pm, I told the guys we would head back to the first spot we tried this morning. We had two fish boated all on the same lure, same color, it was obvious what they wanted now. I setup all rods with the same lure and same color! After about 45 minutes, FISH ON! It was my turn to get the rod this time, but whoever is closest to the rod is the one who sets the hook, so Max picked up the rod and set it hard and hurries to give me the rod. As he extends his arms, I see the glared look in his eyes, I ask him:

Is it big?

-YES!!

I did not hesitate for a second, I replied: it’s yours buddy start reeling!!

I really did not expect to see this kind of fight. A reel tank! The battles lasted 5 to 9 minutes even with a tekota 500lc. It jumped, it ran, every little thing to make a musky fishermen happy and nervous at the same time. Max was scared to lose it, but the moment that made me worry is when it came at the surface and gave a strong head shake and removed a treble hook out of its mouth. In the following minute she was in the net, I say “she” as this fish was way too big to be a male. A magnificent specimen of 53x23 simply amazing!

This was my buddy Max’s biggest and new personal best, for me this was mission accomplished!

Once you get some momentum built up why not keep going? We kept combing the area, and Andrew pointed out that we needed to head back to be able to put away the gear and prep the photos for the tournament results. I stop the engine, FISH ON! I let this one play a little, and enjoyed reeling in this 40 incher with a crazy 19 inch girth, that is simply huge for a fish of that length!

I never imagined being able to win first, second and third.. But seems like others had a hard time out there that day. These are some great fishing memories that I will not soon forget!”