Luck may be a lady, but one of Minnesota’s most successful muskie mavens is still very much a girl. “Lucky” Libby Hoene is only 16 years old, but she has already amassed a catch list longer than some muskie anglers can fill in a lifetime.
Despite her youth, the Coon Rapids High School sophomore has garnered plenty of experience to recognize one of her sport’s principle maxims: “With muskie fishing, you can’t guarantee that you’ll catch fish.”
However, Libby’s track record seemingly stands in the face of that rule of thumb; hence the nickname “Lucky” Libby.
Reeling in a prized catch longer than 50 inches constitutes the Holy Grail among muskie anglers; Libby has broken that barrier seven times since turning 13, including her two best that were both 52-inch lunkers.
Though Libby has logged thousands of hours of practice time, whether fishing on a boat or watching instructional programs, she says she cannot explain her uncanny ability to land muskies. Her father, Tim – a Minnesota fishing guide and her longtime angling companion – also says there seems to be more than extreme angling skill at work when she sets her sights on kicker muskies, a species that Libby doesn’t even claim as her first choice.
“I don’t have a favorite … muskies are what I’m best at,” she said. “I like catching the really big ones.”
Despite her prowess on Minnesota’s muskie trail – where she has outfished many an angler, regardless of age or gender – Libby’s typical dilemmas do not always revolve around the best baits or where the fish are biting. She still wrestles with many of the same decisions faced by her peers, albeit from a different vantage.
For example, during an afternoon late this summer, Libby was trying to decide whether or not she liked the way her painted fingernails looked and if she would have time to squeeze in a manicure that day. She had recently grown them long.
“They’re tough to keep because of fishing,” she said. “They hurt when you jam them up.”
But where most teenage girls may have weighed the manicure against a trip to the mall, Libby was instead debating whether she ought to hit the water that evening to stay on track to break her personal best for a season of fishing. Her best is landing 37 muskies in excess of 30 inches in one season, and by Nov. 24, with viable fishing days still ahead of her before ice over, she had caught 26. Libby has registered 155 such fish in her lifetime.
Success on the water doesn’t come without a price for a schoolgirl, an unlikely vessel of muskie mastery.
“I get made fun of for fishing at school all the time,” Libby said. “Girls at my school that don’t like me call me `Fish Girl’ and stuff like that. They’re just jealous, too, because I’m on TV and they’re not.”
So how did Libby arrive at this odd intersection of female adolescence and champion-style muskie angling? Her story, along with the origin of her famous fishing “luck,” begins at such a young age her father must tell the story. Libby cannot remember the time.
Answering an early call
Tim says he distinctly remembers Libby catching her first fish on a Minnesota lake. She was about 11/2 years old, and she was bobber fishing with “a Snoopy rod” designed for children.
“I had to put her in a collapsible playpen … and then I tied her into, like a baby harness, and tied her lifejacket inside of the playpen, which was tied to the boat in case it capsized,” said Tim. “And then I took her walleye fishing for opening day. She didn’t take very long, probably about an hour, and she had her first walleye.”
Before too long, the Snoopy rod gave way to a newer model and Libby’s single catches were replaced by copious quantities of fish.
“She graduated up to a tangle-free Johnson, and she’d catch limits and limits of walleyes in hours,” said Tim, a steadfast practitioner of catch-and-release like Libby.
Publicity arrives from above
The next shining milestone in Libby’s career is more memorable for her, though she was still preschool age.
“I remember when I was 4 years old and I got my limit – actually (Dad) didn’t get his limit – I got my limit,” Libby said, simultaneously alluding to the competition between them while beginning the story of her long-term relationship with the media.
“Kare 11 News [a Twin Cities NBC affiliate] came swooping down past us, and I started waving at them. We were on Mille Lacs and they were in a helicopter – they came swooping down, and they were getting really close to shore, and they were filming us,” Libby said. “Then we went to shore, and that’s when we met [outdoor journalist and Minnesota Fishing Hall of Fame inductee] Jim Peterson … and he thought it was so cool that I got my limit and stuff like that, so he decided to take a picture.”
The family had started fishing at midnight, though Tim says Libby and her mother grabbed some shuteye during the wee hours of the morning. By 10 a.m. when the helicopter passed, they had their limits of walleyes, and Tim says Libby proudly hoisted one skyward to show the aerial passengers.
After the family returned to shore, Tim says, “Jim Peterson made a big deal and made us follow him back to his cabin, and he got (Libby) to take pictures at the dock to make it look more realistic because we were icing down two coolers full of walleyes with ice we got at a gas station.”
At a mere 4, Libby had already begun her relationship with the press through fishing. Whether the chance meeting was coincidence or fate is debatable, but it is certain that Libby’s exposure snowballed from there. Luck probably played a large part in that initial contact with the media – one that laid the foundation for future publicity – but Libby would go on to earn subsequent coverage.
On the muskie trail
According to Tim, his daughter is quite competitive, a trait that has served her well among her muskie-fishing peers as well as in the family.
The two square off in an unofficial father-vs.-daughter competition from season to season. Tim says the muskie race began “when people started teasing me that Libby was catching more fish than me.” By late November Libby had netted 26 muskies in excess of 30 inches while Tim trailed behind with 21. But Tim is not bitter about defeat; her penchant for pulling in plus-sized muskies has had a positive effect on his guiding business.
“I’ve been known as a pretty good guide over the years,” he says, “But the purpose for most people wanting to go with us is because they want to fish with her and pick her brain a little. We’ve had people ask for [her] autographs out on the lake.”
That competitive edge, fostered through family fishing, has also led Libby to national success as well. Muskies Inc., a muskellunge sport-fishing organization, administers national competitions including one for junior anglers younger than 18. The contest counts the total number of muskies over 30 inches caught in a season, assigning point values to the fish depending on length. Though Minnesota length regulations vary from lake to lake, the Muskies Inc. contest satisfies regulation requirements since it promotes catch-and-release practices.
“I know that I have to win the Muskies Inc.’s junior title one more time because, after next season, then I can’t [compete in the junior division],” Libby says. “I’m always beaten out by boys.”
Well, not always. Libby already has one championship title, a runner-up award and a third-place finish under her belt in the junior division, which includes girls and boys.
Vying for honors in Muskies Inc. competition – as well as other tournament trails – has forged a path to more than just awards. Libby says she has met many people and made many friends along the way as well as making inroads into the sponsorship world.
Fishing into the big time
With all the success and exposure Libby has found since beginning her young career, she has become a hot commodity. The sponsor offers began in winter 2002, and Libby is now wearing the colors of many notable corporations and companies: Pepsi, Gander Mountain, Suzuki, Alumacraft, Minn Kota, Beckman Net Company and Vexilar are some.
Libby’s angling prowess has also afforded her the opportunity to share her insights into fishing and the outdoors with a mass audience. Tim says that, “by catching the fish she does, it enables her to be enough in the public eye that people will listen. And that helps other families learn to have the same kind of fun together that we have.”
She intermittently writes columns for Muskie Magazine, and she has given presentations at many industry gatherings and seminars, averaging about eight speaking engagements a year.
“She does seminars constantly,” Tim says. Libby adds matter-of-factly, “Yeah, that’s what the winter is for.”
“She’s pretty good at it,” he says. “She gets hired back by everybody who’s ever hired her. She just gets better at it every time.
“She does some in front of 300 people,” Tim continues proudly. “She had a standing ovation at the Minneapolis Sports Show.”
And the publicity has not diminished, of course. Libby was the subject of many news stories in the last year, both on a regional and national level, and she has appeared on the cover of fishing magazines.
Daddy’s girl is growing up
One Hoene story in particular has attracted considerable attention lately, but it began several years ago when Libby was 11, before the length of her fingernails weighed heavily on her mind.
“When she did a show with [Emmy-award-winning outdoor TV personality] Ron Schara, she had 27 muskies and I had made a deal with her that summer,” Tim says. “When she caught 100 muskies, she could go on her first date. Then she announced it on TV.”
Tim thought the deal would buy him plenty of time before he had to start worrying about boys.
“I thought it would at least make her fish with me more, and it never hurts to set goals,” Tim says, revealing the multifaceted aspect of his plan.
But Tim’s dating buffer would be short-lived. Libby caught her 100th 30-plus-incher in July 2002 on Mille Lacs, the same lake where she caught her first one.
“I was 14,” Libby recalls with a gleam in her eye. “I started rubbing it in, and I was dancing around the boat, and I was like, `I got a hundred now. I got a hundred.'”
Tim would have liked Libby’s first date to be delayed by a few more years, but when it came, it was as close to comfortable for him as he could have hoped. She went fishing with a Minnesota boy who Tim says was “a nice kid.”
As Libby’s taste in fashion fluxes from fishing apparel to designer jeans, her outlook on her future is shifting as well. At 16, she knows she will continue to fish avidly. However, she’s uncertain whether the sport will provide her with a career or if she even wants to pursue such a goal.
“I don’t like the working part of it, I mean, who really does?” Libby admits of her current status as one of Minnesota’s busiest muskie anglers. “Most of the time I just go out fishing because of it. I’m kind of a nature person.”
If Libby’s career interests seem to be drifting more toward the fields of architecture or design, Tim is still interested in holding the door open for her until she decides. For him, an angling career is near the top of the list of dream jobs.
“If the fishing industry took her on … she’d do that,” Tim says, sounding less assured than hopeful.
Just for the joy of it
Muskie fishing will play a pivotal part in Libby’s immediate future, however. She’s got one more season of eligibility to repeat her title run in the Muskies Inc. junior division, a goal she has set for herself.
Perhaps more importantly, fishing will always be the foundation of her past. Her times out on the lake have been the key building blocks of a strong relationship with her father, one not likely to wane as she passes into adulthood.
And for the time being, Libby still regards her time fishing with her dad as some of the best she spends, even at the expense of missing a few trips to the mall or the nail salon. Regarding her vast body of fishing memories, she cites the social side as being as much of a reward as the thrill of boating monster muskies.
“I just remember knowing it was something I could do with dad,” Libby says.
Tim says, “And you never said, `no,’ when I asked, `Do you want to go fishing? And she still never says, `no.'”