{"id":4524,"date":"2014-08-24T17:17:16","date_gmt":"2014-08-24T22:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/?p=4524"},"modified":"2014-10-12T11:15:22","modified_gmt":"2014-10-12T16:15:22","slug":"minnehaha-muskie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/?p=4524","title":{"rendered":"Minnehaha Muskie"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/P8230050.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4525\" src=\"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/P8230050.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/P8230050.jpg 640w, http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/P8230050-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a>After an hour of exploring the backwaters of the creek, I turned towards shore and\u00a0 I saw a muskie following about 6 feet behind me. When I\u00a0 turned toward it, the muskie did not move away. This 3 foot fish exuded a &#8220;presence&#8221;, and I wasn&#8217;t sure I was welcome in its domain. At one point it faced directly towards me, and I hoped that I didn&#8217;t have any resemblance to a large muskrat. For 3 days I could see those eyes staring back at me. They were the eyes of a living being completely wild and free &#8211; exuding the immenseness of nature.<br \/>\nAs I swam away, I wondered if this was the same muskie that was stranded in the creek before freeze-up, and we returned it to Lake Minnetonka. It makes a good story, but it probably wasn&#8217;t&#8230;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4526\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/PC210009.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4526\" class=\"size-large wp-image-4526\" src=\"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/PC210009-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Jed getting ready to transport the muskie back to Lake Minnetonka from the creek.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/PC210009-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/PC210009-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/PC210009.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4526\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jed getting ready to transport the muskie back to Lake Minnetonka from the creek.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After an hour of exploring the backwaters of the creek, I turned towards shore and\u00a0 I saw a muskie following about 6 feet behind me. When I\u00a0 turned toward it, the muskie did not move away. This 3 foot fish &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/?p=4524\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,16,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature-notes","category-photography","category-summer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4524"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4533,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4524\/revisions\/4533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}