Ohio Huskie Muskie Club, Inc

What a beautiful day to have a banquet at a great setting.  Firefly Woods hosted the banquet overlooking a calm but flooded Leesville Lake on a day full of sunshine.  We thank Kortney and Chad for providing a great venue and setup for our banquet.  We also thank David White for handling check in, Phil Ringenbach for managing our Main Event ticket sales and Kevin Proffitt for helping with parking.  This was our 65th annual Awards Banquet.  From some quick internet research, we appear to be the second oldest muskie club in the United States being founded in 1961.  Only the Muskellunge Club of Wisconsin is older being founded in 1953.  We had 75 members and guests join the celebration and were treated to a fine dinner of hamburgers and hotdogs, with sides  through the support of the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District and cookies and brownies brought by the members.   Thanks go out to Cash and Chad for their cooking chops.  Our guests included John Navarro, Curt Wagner and Kyle Leachman from the ODNR and Craig Butler from the MWCD.  John Navarro gave insights into upcoming changes in the MAL as well as an exciting project to introduce muskies into the most recently named scenic river in Ohio, the Raccoon tributary of the Ohio river.  Fry will be introduced over a number of years and monitored to see if the population can become a naturally sustained fishery.  Kyle Leachman provided fascinating insights on the complex process of raising muskies in a hatchery and the ODNR’s drive to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their hatchery operations.  Craig Butler provided a historical insight into the watershed as well as thoughts on the future development especially around the recreational use of the watershed lakes.

We thanked Keith Stayer for becoming our most recent Life member.

Derek Halas then presented our awards for 2025.

Kevin Proffitt received the Joe Blackwell Mr. Muskie award.

Shelly Leglise the Woman of the Year award.

Charles Clendenin the H. E. Pooch Curry award.

Erika Bonebrake the Queen Royalty award.

Addison Davies the Matthew Smith Memorial Award for Junior girls.

Cooper Marshall the Matthew Smith Memorial Award for Junior boys.

The Fifty Inch Award recipients were Charles Clendenin, David Noel and John Welch.

Derek Halas was presented the Award for 2025 Overall Tournament Winner.

The 10 or more Release awards and Dunmire awards were presented as well.

Dan Welch accepted the Fifty Inch award for his father John Welch.  On behalf of the club we mourn the loss of John but know how happy he was to catch his first 50″ muskie.

The final picture is of Derek with his Angler of the Year award.  He accomplished this feat while fishing out of a kayak in our events.  Derek is obviously a quality fisherman.

We thank all for attending and look forward to our next event, May Madness.  Until then tight lines.

What a beautiful day.  What started out overcast, damp and maybe cold to cool depending on how many layers one wore turned by noon into a bright, sunny warm day to catch muskies.  We had 35 angler enter to capture that First place trophy, or maybe second or third and the big fish pot.  Turns out that most of the muskies were enjoying the warm sunny day by sitting on their couch eating shad somewhere out of sight.  Four anglers were able to net 8 legal fish, the rest of us enjoyed the day on the water.  Being a one day event, only the largest two muskie of an angler counts toward the award placement.  Our Third place winner was Tim Smith with a muskie of 43.5″ including the big fish pot.  The picture of the 43.5″ fish is one where the fish looks bigger than the measurement.  Tim was kind to donate $170 of the $350 pot back to the Minnow Fund.  Second place with four muskies of 38″, 36″, 36″ and 32″ was Cash Naftzger.  First place with two muskies of 42.75″ and 35.75″ was Tyler Lynn. Tyler has been on quite the tournament win streak from last year to this year.  Rounding out the fish caught was Dave White with a 33.25″ fish.

Thanks to all who entered the event, the money raised helps fuel our Minnow fund donation for 2026.

Our next fishing event is our May Madness the weekend after Labor Day on May 29 to May 31.  This is an online event where all Ohio lakes are open to be fished.  Details to follow.

Our Annual banquet is happening on Saturday, April 11 at Firefly Woods on Leesville Lake.  The banquet is free so come out for a evening of muskie talk, presentations, and award.

More information is provided at this link.

Awards Banquet Registration and Information

We are breaking some new ground this year by moving our award celebration back to Saturday, April 11th and have the event at Firefly Woods at 4141 Dublin Rd. SW, Bowerston, Ohio right on Leesville Lake.  Plus the club will be providing hamburgers and hot dogs, side dishes and soft drinks for free.  As in the past, each person attending will receive a free lure to help them catch that personal best in 2026.  We will have presentations by the ODNR and MWCD as well as the award celebration.
Doors will open at 4pm and dinner will be at 5:30 pm with the presentations and awards to follow.

Here is the link to registration.  Please register so we can know what to plan for the amount of food.  Thanks.

Awards Celebration registration