Jim Stewart of Rollie & Helens, a Northwoods fishing supply shop that bills itself as "the world's largest musky shop," says people can spend anywhere from $200 to $2000 outfitting themselves to hook a musky.īack out fishing at the Monday night musky league, fishing guide Colin Crawford tells the tale of how he tied for biggest musky in a league competition back in 2019. but after fishing for muskies for 10, 20 years, you finally catch that one, it's probably a small price to pay for all the money you spent trying to catch it." Lax then sprays an auto body finish on, so the replicas glisten just like a fish out of water.įor many, this is like buying a work of art – with a prized 50 inch replica costing $800. "Every time you look at it, you've just re-live that day" Rick Lax holds up a musky head mold alongside a musky reproduction in his showroom. Yellow and red, and next thing you know you got all the shades of a fish." Don't use a lot of different colors, but we do a lot of shading. Lax does his airbrushing in the corner of his studio. And painting the replica brings the trophy to life. Lax injects the model fish with foam, so it doesn't crack. And then we do the artistry of putting all the coloration into it to make it more look like the picture," Lax says. "It's like putting a model together a model plane, a model train, we're putting those together, we're putting everything, all the pieces together. It it takes six to eight months for people to get their replica shipped once it's ordered. Lax is one of a handful of places around the country doing this work, and the company professes to have the largest supply of sizes and molds in the world. People display their replicas anywhere from mantles to man-caves. The trophies can mount directly on the wall, sit on a base of driftwood or a plaque or even balance on a pedestal. The angler can choose if they want the trophy to replicate how the musky looks in the photo or if they want any other pose. The company uses the photo and measurements to build your fish trophy, using two-part polymer plastic molds taken from muskies caught in days gone by. If you can, you measure the fish's length and girth and then release it back into the lake. About 30 musky replicas hang in the showroom in a variety of poses: teeth bared, chasing a school of perch, facing left or right. Lax has a combined studio and showroom in Conover, Wis. The company started transitioning to replicas in the '90s after amassing hundreds of molds of actual muskies. "We can do about anything," says Rick Lax, who took over Lax Reproductions from his father in 2003, referring to poses, patterns, and styles of musky reproductions. Fishing guide Colin Crawford explains the protocol. To protect the state's musky population from decline, like the extirpation of the Great Lakes muskies in Green Bay more than 30 years ago by commercial fishing, and to ensure the ecosystem of the thousands of lakes in Wisconsin's Northwoods, some fishermen practice catch and release. And basically, your job as a guide is to prepare the people for what might happen." "It's a challenge because it's a difficult fish to catch," Jackson says. Northwoods fishing guide Ken Jackson describes the adventure as "hours of boredom followed by seconds of panic." It's sometimes called " the fish of 10,000 casts," as it's so elusive. The muskellunge long, more popularly called the musky, is Wisconsin's state fish and it's known as a freshwater equivalent of the barracuda. That's happening now in Wisconsin's Northwoods, a north central area of the state with more than 3200 lakes, streams and rivers, as anglers turn to replica trophies to celebrate snagging the notorious musky-a freshwater predator that can span up to 5 feet and weigh up to 70 lbs. Imagine catching a trophy fish and celebrating with a mount of your big catch on the wall, but only after you actually released the fish back into the lake. Northwoods fishing guide Colin Crawford holds a Lax Reproductions musky replica he won in a musky league in 2019.