Tiger Muskie Without a Net

So here we go. I went out on Newman Lake on the border of Washington and Idaho last weekend with my friend Scot. He is one of my instructors and a CRNA in the program I am in. We took out Pa's canoe and headed out to the lake. We were fishing along the shore in some lily pads and not having much luck. I had changed flies a few times to various popper patterns. The goal of the trip was a bass and blue gill trip. We fished for about an hour with no luck and decided to head out deeper into the lily pads where I thought, due to the inability of motor boats to get there, we would really get into some fish. We fishing in the lily pads for about an hour and still werent having luck. I switch to a Sparkle Stealth Bomber and was fishing just in the clearing above the head of the fish in this first picture. I had cast across to the where the other lily pads are at the far end and stripped the fly two or three times when I had an agressive strike but I pulled the fly out too soon. From the strike I was pretty excited that we were not getting into some bass after fishing with no luck for quite a while. I cast the fly to about the same spot where the previous strike occured and stripped it one more time when the bomber exploded and was gone, the fish was on and I still had no idea what was on the end other than my rod was flexed to the max. I was fishing my 5-6 weight bamboo rod and the tip was flexed parallel to the handle. The fish took off and as I was getting the fish on the line I was using my left hand as some drag but this fish ripped it through my hand and actually ended up cutting me with my line. Once on  the reel he kept going and pulled out another good bit of line before he had the line wrapped around some lily pads stems. At this point we paddle over to where I am locked up and I just expect that the fish is gone. As I reach down to unwrap my floating line from the stems about 7 feet off the boat I see this monster rise up and splash and I can see he is still on the line. I see him roll over and at this moment realize I dont have a bass on the line. I almost swamp the canoe leaning over to get a glimpse. It is at this exact minute that my friend says, "Dan, did you bring a net?" Being the J-1er that I am, of course I did not and now the fear of how I am goint to get this fish off the line is rushing through my head. I get the fish kind of up near the canoe and see an opportunity to grab him behind the gills. So I did. Little known fact... Those teeth go way back in there. These teeth are not the same teeth as when you catch a large trout. This fish is a mini shark and those are little/big razer teeth. As you can see my hand is definatly in there and the resulting bleeding was not insignificant. This combined with the line burn made fishing the rest of the day slightly uncomfortable but I could care less. I had landed a beautiful Tiger Muskie and needed nothing else. Scot had one other fish on the line but this was the only fish of the day... 24 inches...Worth it.