Muskie fishing demands both mental grit and physical endurance. Hours of casting and retrieving—at times with lures measured in pounds, not ounces—push both anglers and gear to their absolute limits.

Although big minnow imitating lures have been around for over a century, it seems like they really became part of big bass fishing culture in the late 1980s to early 1990s. Since then, there’s been an ...