Libby Hoene has reached one of the major milestones along the widely walked path to adulthood: high school graduation. But while major transitions are on the horizon for this 18-year-old Coon Rapids, Minn., resident, she is resolute that at least two things in her life will remain unchanged: her zealous pursuit of game fish and a strong desire to help the disadvantaged.
Years before all of this, while still a young girl, Hoene earned the nickname “Lucky Libby,” and it wasn’t for an uncanny ability to toss a hopscotch marker or to roll high dice while playing board games. The moniker was instead earned for her facile hand at landing monster muskies, a skill that many spend decades honing yet few ever master.
Hoene actually caught her first fish, a walleye, before she turned 2, according to her father and longtime fishing companion, Tim Hoene. Throughout Hoene’s early childhood, she and her father fished for walleyes and muskies, the latter a sporting favorite of Tim’s, but the younger Hoene simply possessed an inexplicable knack for hooking muskies, a species known for its maddeningly elusive nature.
When FLWOutdoors.com last reported on Hoene, the then 16-year-old was already several shades riper than green when it came to landing lunkers. If the designation “muskie maven” was at all premature at that time, she has since bolstered her catch log to such an extent that the phrase seems almost an understatement now.
Hoene’s muskie numbers, records and titles are irrefutable:
• Two Muskies Inc. Junior Division Championship titles (the Junior Division includes males and females under 18; Hoene won when she was 14 and again at 17)
• The record for the most official 50-plus-inch catches (9) in the Muskies Inc. Women’s Masters Division
• 224 lifetime catches of muskies over 30 inches, which is the catch length recognized by Muskies Inc. and many other muskie organizations, including three in excess of 52 inches (an unofficial “Holy Grail” measurement for muskie anglers)
Those kinds of numbers might be viewed by some anglers as laurels upon which they could rest, but change walks in lock stop with youth, and Hoene has been branching out in recent years. She still avidly pursues Minnesota muskies, but Hoene now devotes much of her time and talents to charitable causes as well as a new angling aim.
Bass bug bites hard
Eighteen is arguably one of the most transitional ages people experience in the United States: It marks the legal age of adulthood, entrance into the electorate, the beginning of workaday lives for many, or the start of years of in-depth study and career preparation for others, just to name some of the meaningful turning points.
For an angler as devoted to the sport of muskie fishing as Hoene, another significant change has occurred in her life in recent months; she has ventured down the bass-fishing tournament trail with the same passion, poise and professionalism that has punctuated her pursuit of muskies.
“You catch more fish,” said Hoene, crystallizing the reason for her foray into the bass-fishing world. “With muskies, you can spend one whole day waiting for a follow.”
Indeed. A recent morning spent with Hoene on Lake Independence northwest of the Twin Cities illustrated just how many maneuvers and casts it can take to pique a muskie’s curiosity.
“Also, bass are fun to catch,” Hoene continued, as she patiently worked the edge of a weedbed. “When they hit, it’s a lot of fun, and they jump a lot. I love it.”
Hoene fished her first Silverado Pro-Am Bass Tour event in 2005, but became firmly entrenched in the sport this year, when she’s slated to fish several tournaments. She’s now fully outfitted for bass tournaments in her new Ranger boat that is adorned with the logos of some of her biggest sponsors, including Ranger, Evinrude, Gander Mountain and Crystal-Pierz Marine.
“With bass fishing, it’s kind of like downsized muskie fishing,” she said. “You kind of fish the same areas. I fish a lot shallower for bass than muskies usually, but a lot of the areas are the same. For bass, dock fishing is what I’m really working on.”
Though the Land of 10,000 Lakes obviously offers a wide variety of fisheries, Hoene hunts for certain commonalities among them where she likes to find her fish: the edges of deep-water weedlines, rock piles or weedbeds in shallower water.
And Hoene has found that bass baits aren’t a far cry from those she grew up using. For bass, she currently likes to fish with Chatterbaits, Zoom Horny Toads and buzzbaits; her favorites for tempting muskies are Phantom jerkbaits, Jackpot topwaters and Eagle Tail bucktails. She said the difference between bass and muskie tackle has more to do with scale than functionality.
“With bass fishing, the lures and everything are smaller, but very similar,” she said.
More on the line than fish
It is Hoene’s pursuit of game fish that has given her a platform from which she can make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate than herself. Her endeavors to that end in recent years surely signal she is growing up, perhaps even more than leaving home for college in the fall, competing as a pro angler or working as a fishing guide.
Listing all of the charitable events Hoene has participated in or coordinated would be as futile as trying to enumerate her many fishing awards and achievements, but highlighting just a few offers insight into both Hoene’s interests and her character.
She has established her own annual fishing tournament to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation; she has served as a fishing guide for events sponsored by Capable Partners, which strives to create a network of well-known and respected sports people who volunteer their time and talents to offer outdoor opportunities to the physically challenged; and she has guided inner-city children for the Minneapolis-St. Paul Fishing for Life initiative.
“We’re exposing inner-city children to fishing,” Hoene said of the latter. “We’re trying to keep them off the streets. I think it’s a good thing.”
On June 11, Hoene was fishing in a Capable Partners event with Jenny Halloway, who has spinal problems that have contributed to two hip replacements as well as the same for one knee. Halloway said it was great to get out of her Crystal, Minn., apartment, and she was enjoying the company, a chance to learn a new skill and a beautiful day on the water.
“I don’t get out very much, so I joined this club for handicapped people,” said Halloway, who had caught her first northern pike a few weeks prior and was excited at the prospect of adding a muskie to her list 
of catches. “(Hoene)’s been really good. She’s taught me some really good tricks. I want to come back out.”
At that point, Hoene was teaching Halloway the secrets of a long, controlled cast with a baitcaster reel. “She’s got that good, solid whip,” Halloway said of Hoene’s casts.
While Hoene and Halloway talked about everything from hockey – another passion of Hoene’s, this one from the vantage of a fan – to friends to family, they worked weedbeds on a quest to land a muskie. Though they wouldn’t land one that day, they did manage to get a few to follow the baits up to the boat and even enticed some strikes.
Shortly before having to return to the launch site for a group picnic in the park, Halloway spotted a couple loons on the lake. After less than five hours together on the water, Halloway already knew one of Hoene’s less-publicized talents, so she urged her young guide to call to the birds. After a brief 
moment of embarrassment, Hoene acquiesced and proceeded to successfully call the loons, which answered back, in toward the boat.
“I love loons,” said Hoene, excited by their response. “They’re my favorite bird in the entire world.”
Halloway shook her head and smiled: “The girl who talks to loons.”
Granting wishes
Of all Hoene’s charitable causes, however, her involvement with the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Minnesota has been her crowning compassionate achievement. After the Lucky Libby Charity Fishing Tourney concludes Oct. 7, Hoene will have directly helped grant wishes for many children facing life-threatening medical conditions.
“I had an aunt who had breast cancer. That’s kind of how I got involved,” she said of her charitable efforts. “She was an inspiration to me, how she never gave up hope. She always had a smile.
“I wanted to do something nice for the community and especially kids. Then I donated a guide trip to Make-A-Wish.”
A few years ago, Hoene read a letter written by the parent of a Make-A-Wish child who had died on the way home from a wish trip. The letter described how significant the trip, constituting a wish fulfilled, had meant to the child and family. It had a profound effect on Hoene.
“That’s when I decided to put on a tournament, because there’s just not enough money,” she said. “A lot of these kids die, waiting for their wish.”
In her first two runs at coordinating the tournament – which takes place in early fall on Lake Minnetonka and brings together sports personalities, outdoor enthusiasts and celebrities to fish for bass and muskies – Hoene has directly raised about $36,000 for the organization and contributed roughly another $15,000 worth of in-kind services.
“I never thought it would get that big,” she said of the event, which is in its third year. “My goal is very high this year. I want it to be huge – maybe $30,000.”
Tom McKinney, executive director of Make-A-Wish Foundation of Minnesota, said reaching that goal would translate to granting about six wishes. Anyone who wants to learn more about the event or would like to have a registration mailed to them can call Tim Hoene at (763) 370-3802 or visit the Make-A-Wish Web site; anyone wanting to make a donation can mail a check to the Lucky Libby Charity Fishing Tournament, 10517 Eagle St. N.W., Coon Rapids, MN, 55433.
“Her passion is incredible for someone that young … and she started at 16,” McKinney said. “Secondly, there aren’t a lot of charity fishing tournaments around … so that’s quite novel.”
If Hoene can serve as inspiration to others – whether as a fund-raiser, role model or as a young female competing in a sport largely dominated by men – she said she will feel like she has accomplished something far more significant than all the awards she’s earned.
“I think if people, like pro fishermen, just did something nice for somebody else … that’s what I want.”
The next chapter
By the time Hoene tossed her mortar board skyward at Coon Rapids High School just a couple months ago, she had already worn a closetful of hats: tournament pro, fishing guide, seminar speaker, tournament director, TV personality, et al. Soon she will wear another – Bemidji State University freshman.
With all the commitments higher education entails, it would seem that fishing would have to take a back seat to studies and college life in general, but Hoene, who said she plans to study business with a marketing emphasis, sees it differently.
“Now I’ll just have to fish up there,” she said. “I’m just going to have to learn some new bodies of water. Lake Bemidji is a very big muskie lake.”
In late August, Hoene will trade the comfort and stability of her home – and home waters – for campus life, a sea of new faces and a different corner of Minnesota. During the first leg of her new academic endeavor, she will stay extremely busy with tournaments or other fishing-related appearances every weekend through her own charity tournament in early October. She may even welcome the hectic schedule, as it will likely take her mind off the major transition that she has understandably been considering with some apprehension.
“You’re so used to one thing, you don’t want it to change,” Hoene said earlier this summer. “I hate change. I’m scared … I just want to stay the same age, and I don’t want to change.”
However, change is as inevitable as growing older. Despite her reservations about it, Hoene will turn 19 before her charity tournament takes place. But an essential characteristic of being a great angler is adaptability, and Hoene is a great angler, one that will undoubtedly find a way to ride the waves of change headed her way.
And in the meantime, she can take solace in the fact that one thing in her life will always remain constant.
“I’m still going to be fishing tournaments; I’m still going to fish a lot,” she said. “Fishing is always going to be part of my life.”