Anderson: Albino muskie's lake should stay metro mystery

As journalism conundrums go, this one won't vie with whether or not to publish the Pentagon Papers or identify Deep Throat.

Still, this question: Should newspapers (or other media) insist that anglers identify the lakes or rivers where they catch trophy fish?

The issue arose most recently when I wrote a column about an albino (or whitish) muskie landed by Joe Mikalojczyk of Coon Rapids.

Mikalojczyk caught the fish while guided by Josh Stevenson, whose operation, Mighty Musky Fishing Guide Service, is run out of his Oakdale fishing shop, Blue Ribbon Bait and Tackle.

Some background: I know, generally, where Mikalojczyk and Stevenson hooked the 46-inch muskie. Yet I didn't identify the location in my column except to say "in the metro."

To me, it's just common sense: Muskies in Twin Cities area waters are under enough pressure, day and night, without this newspaper pinpointing where an unusual, and big, specimen was caught.

Yet some readers wanted me to cough up the details.

I'll concede a definitive rule in these circumstances is difficult to establish.

If someone catches a 2-pound crappie in Minnetonka, for instance, I don't have a problem naming the lake, assuming it's OK with the angler. Ditto a 4-pound bass from Big Marine, or a monster sunnie from Forest Lake.

And trophies — including muskies — caught in lakes well outside the Twin Cities seem fair game as well, because reports of their catches aren't likely to produce significant added pressure to those named waters.

But the metro?

A few years back, I wrote about catching a 5-pound largemouth and a couple of other whoppers on a Saturday bass opener. The story appeared the next day, in a (large circulation) Sunday paper, and later that morning a parking spot couldn't be found within blocks of the lake's only public landing.

So it's a bit of a moving target, whether to publish details about where big fish are caught.

But identify the home waters of an albino, or whitish, muskie caught in the metro?

I don't think so.

After all, maybe the fish wasn't even an albino — as reports published elsewhere suggest, citing the expertise of Minnesota DNR fisheries officials.

But according to the Wisconsin DNR, regarding an albino muskie caught in that state in 2010, and also to Webster's Dictionary, it was.