Kenora fisherman survives muskie 'fish attack'

Jon Olson, a fisherman from Kenora, Ont.,has a fish tale few can top.

Olson was competing in the Kenora Bass International fishing tournament last weekend when he dipped his toes in the water before the weigh-in.

He said he felt a tug, yelled, and pulled a muskie out of the lake, its teeth clamped to his foot.

At first, Olson thought someone was literally pulling his leg.

"I thought one of the other guys was playing a joke and swam under the back of the boat and actually grabbed my foot," he said.

"But when I pulled my foot up and yelled, I (saw) it just attached."

Olson said the fish was more than a metrelong and weighed abouteight kilograms.

"All of a sudden something come up and grabbed my foot and I kinda just yelled and jerked my foot away," he said.

"When I pulled my foot, it pulled the muskie and pulled him out of the water by a foot and then he let go."

Olson has deep cuts on his foot and ended up placing tenth in the tournament.

But he has a great fish story to tell.

• The muskellunge is the largest member of the pike family. The common name comes from the Ojibwa word maashkinoozhe, meaning ugly pike.
• The muskie diet consists of fish but can also include frogs, ducklings, snakes, muskrats, mice, and other small mammals and birds. Its mouth is large with many long, needle-like teeth.
• They typically weigh2.3 to 16 kilograms and are0.7 to 1.2 metres in length but some have weighed as much as32kilograms and been as long as1.5 metres.
• Kenora is home to a12-metre-high roadside sculpture known as Huskie the Muskie, the citys informal mascot.