Finding The Professional Musky Angler
Just Look in mirror.
By Craig Sandell © 2009

The myth that only those 'notable' Musky anglers are “Professionals” seems to be a characterization that is far too narrow in its scope. As with most myths, the responsibility for this one lies at the feet of those 'Musky Notables'.

If you look up a definition of ‘professional’ you get:

As a dedicated Musky angler, all these definitions apply to you. I don’t know any dedicated Musky anglers who are not proficient, skilled, trained. practiced and specialized.

Indeed, we are all specialists who, over time and experience, have become expert at Musky angling and an authority relative to our approach to finding fish and, as often as not, putting fish in the boat.

Just because someone has been certified as a guide, something that anyone with the guide license fee can do, that doesn’t make him or her anything more than a person running a business who fishes for Musky.

Just because someone has articles published, that only means that they took the time to document their thoughts and found an outlet, magazine or internet, that figured that the article would be interesting to that outlet’s readership.

We all know that there are days when we are ‘skunked’ on the water and days when skill combined with luck net us a quality fish. (I don’t use the word trophy because someone’s 45” fish is no less a trophy than another’s 56” fish.)

Having a patch on your shirt does not decrease the possibility of being ‘skunked’ nor does it make you any more professional than the angler who is not acting as an ‘advertising billboard’.

Any accomplished Musky angler deserves the regard of other Musky anglers. Remember that when you are looking at a Musky angler on a Musky video or in Musky articles in a magazine or on the Internet, you are not seeing a Musky angler who is any more professional than are you.

Confidence on the water is a key element to being successful on the water…be confident in your equipment, your skill as a Musky angler and your execution of the Musky hunt.

As a professional, you can do no less.