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"Steve Rusteberg of Naperville, IL and Duane Landmeier of
Hinckley, Win Professional Musky Tournament Trail Shelbyville
Qualifier" were the headline on Monday April 7th. The tournament
was held on Illinois Shelbyville Lake on April 5th and 6th.
Rusteberg, an outdoor wrighter, fishing guide, and lecturer
pre-fished the water for several weekends before the tournament.
His success level was high boating several fish prior to the
start of the $20,000 event.
Landmeier, guide and lecturer, joined Rusteberg the weekend
before the tournament to help pre-fish what would lead both
to the highest dollar total win in both anglers career.
Landmeier and Rusteberg pre-fished the event in separate
boats despite they were partners in the tournament. This helped
them cover more water. Essentially, this kept them apart in
order to fish separate ends of the lake and not cover the
same water twice in the same boat. This is a common pre-fishing
mistake many partners make before a tournament. The object
of pre-fishing is to cover as much water as possible before
the event and to eliminate water. Pre-fishing separately,
despite you are partners in the event maximizes opportunities
and eliminated dead water. Rusteberg and Landmeier commonly
use this practice before a tournament. They communicate via
cell phone when patterns and locations get hot. From this
information a plan was developed for the PMTT qualifier.
Landmeier attributes the win to Rusteberg's StowMaster Muskie
Net. The net has an extension handle that extends several
feet beyond the normal pole length. This allowed Rusteberg
to extend over eight feet in order to land Landmeiers 46.25"
muskie. The muskie took "big fish" in the tournament
giving the team an extra $500 in the event.
Landmeier doubled for the day catching a 38.25" muskie
later that day, launching the team into a considerable lead
over the nearest competitors. The pattern that won them the
tournament involved casting upon the shoreline with the lure.
"The noise when the lure hits the bank gets the fishes
attention", claims Landmeier.
Then the lure is pulled into the water, and in a matter
of a couple twitches, the lure meets fish flesh and the fight
is on. Landmeier has used this technique in the past with
much success. Landmeier claims speed of the lure is critical
too. He generally fishes faster than most other anglers, twitching
his lure fast, yet keeping the lure high in the water column.
Landmeier and Rusteberg claim the keeping the lure in the
upper warmer water column in the spring is necessary for success.
On the second day of fishing, with just ten minutes to spare,
Rusteberg boated the final fish a 35.5" muskie to clinch
the team win. Without it, the team would have placed second.
Again, the StowMaster Net came to shine. Rusteberg describes
the landing of the fish as a "swish… a Michael Jordan
slam-dunk net job by Landmeier". Again the extension
handle allowed for a fast, accurate, long distance net job.
Rusteberg and Landmeier will enter the second qualifying
event on May 17th and 18th on Kentucky's Cave Run Lake. Space
is still available in this event.
To learn more about StowMaster Landing Nets or The Professional
Musky Tournament Trail (PMTT) got to www.stowmaster.net and
www.promusky.com.
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