Like any other girl preparing for a big day, Kylie laid out her clothes the night before. She’s listened to the weather report and decided what would make her comfortable. Kylie knows that every bit of beauty sleep helps, because when you’re up against 500 men, you have to be on top of your game.

After her alarm clock jolts her awake at 6 a.m., she pulls on her outfit: steel-toed work boots, camouflage cargo pants, and an old sweatshirt.

It is not time to get glamorous for school; it is time to fish with the big boys. Kylie Eoannou, a 19-year-old sophomore enrolled at the University at Buffalo that is currently taking fashion courses at Buffalo State College, is one half of a successful local professional muskie fishing team. The other half is her dad, Dean Eoannou, 52, UB’s boxing coach.

Kylie and her dad have been competing on the professional level since Kylie was 13 and they are doing more than holding their own by finishing in the top ranks in tournaments against 250 teams of professionals.

When it comes to fishing for muskellunge (Esox masquinongy), or “muskie” in angler-speak, it’s like hunting a freshwater shark. With muskies growing up to over five feet and 70 pounds, these slimy fish with razor-sharp teeth can be pretty intimidating. They are such great predators that biologists have been known to find ducks, muskrats, and mice in their digestive tract.

“This is where I end up being on the girly side of professional fishing,” says Kylie. “I don’t like to touch them. My dad usually ends up a little bloody after taking the hook out and when I pose for a picture I have to hold them with two hands and a towel because they’re so slimy.”

Looks and age would make one expect Kylie to be pissed if she lost make-up on one of her fishing trips. Actually, she was more irritated with the $200 in lures they lost due to snags at a recent Professional Muskie Trails Tournament (PMTT) in Kentucky.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

What brought this father-daughter combination to PMTT competitions was the unique success they were having with muskellunge locally. “They are the toughest freshwater fish to land,” says Dean, adding that it often takes the better part of a day to reel one of the brutes in. So with Dean being able to land muskies up to 52 inches long with a 30-inch girth and Kylie boasting catches of up to 44 inches, competing at the professional level seemed pretty logical.

“We felt we were good enough for the pros, and we were,” says Dean. “We went against guys in their own bodies of water that they made a living off of and we took them.” And by the end of 2001, for Kylie and Dean, this was more than apparent. In that year, Kylie landed three muskies in a PMTT Chautauqua tournament, one in a Kentucky PMTT competition, another in the fall Niagara Musky Association tournament and was named 2001 Niagara Musky Association youth fisherman of the year at the age of 15.

Although they did not place in any of these tournaments, Kylie and her Dad still stand out for the mere fact that more then half of the teams in these tournaments, up to 250 teams, did not catch a thing. In fact, at the Chautauqua tournament, unfortunately, the smallest muskie you could count had to be at least 40 inches (currently, the minimum at all PMTT tournaments is set at 30 inches). With the new rules, the three 30-plus inch muskies Kylie caught at Chautauqua would have given her 105 inches or points, when the winner of the tournament, which had a 40-inch minimum at the time, would not have won with the mere 40 inches he pulled in.

THE TURNING POINT

Kylie and Dean’s bad luck finally began to turn around at the 2002 Morehead, Kentucky PMTT competition. There, Kylie boated in two muskies the first day. One of her catches was the biggest fish of the day and, later, of the tournament at 36 inches, leaving them in second place out of 250 professional teams. The second day they did not land anything and dropped back to a still-impressive fifth place at a professional tournament, walking away with $1,600 dollars. Kylie, only 16 years old at the time, received $500 and a fishing pole for the biggest fish of the tournament, beating men twice her age and turning a lot of heads.

Kylie and her dad credit their muskie success on the use of common sense and their ability to make adjustments in their fishing. In one tournament, the duo was down on their luck when they saw a golden fish jumping nearby. They figured out that the muskies had been feeding on carp in the area. They switched to gold-colored lures and started reeling in fish almost immediately.

With the exception of the most recent PMTT tournament in Kentucky this past April where a freak accident caused them to lose their car keys in the lake and miss a day of fishing, the team has landed a muskie in every tournament they have entered, including one amateur and five professional competitions. Most professional fishermen cannot say the same. This UB father-daughter angling team turns heads at every fishing tournament they show up at and are becoming well respected for their talent in the fishing world.

EXPERIENCE MEETS IMAGINATION

Dean has been fishing muskie ever since he was 16, for roughly 35 years now. He knows the importance of having a strong bond between you and your partner, like the one he and his daughter have. “You gotta enjoy your partner because you feed off each other,” Dean says, even if they are less experienced.

“In one tournament everyone was casting off the boat and so I started to,” recalls Dean. “Then Kylie asked, ‘Why are we casting, just because everyone else is? That isn’t what got us here.’ And she was right; we started trolling, and we started to bring some fish in.”

“There has to be a lot of trust working together, with someone on the poles and the other [working the] net,” he adds. “You really have to trust the person reeling the fish in. There’s a lot of money on the line, and I trusted her at 13.”

“They couldn’t believe my dad brought me to these tournaments when I was 13 with all of the money that’s on the line,” says Kylie. “Now, when I go back to Kentucky, everyone knows who I am.”

BEATING THE PACK WITH COMMON SENSE

Any heterosexual girl would love the attention of hundreds of guys on a given day and so does Kylie. That is, except when the burly, grown men of the PMTT tournaments are giving her attention for reasons other than her fishing resume.

However, that is just the price that you pay for being in a league of your own. For Kylie, it is being not just a pretty face, but a pretty face who can knock grown fishermen clean on their ass.

“Some of the men in the tournaments must think I’m stupid,” she says. “They walk up to me and [they’re] like ‘Hey, little girl, what type of lure are you using to catch all those fish?’ I just shrug my shoulders and tell them I dunno.”

“One time a guy my dad even knows from up here, saw me look at a lure down in a store in Kentucky and he bought the whole row of them so I couldn’t,” she adds. “I even have to hide my lure when I put it in the water because people are looking from other boats with binoculars to see what I’m using.”

For those who think Dean and Kylie’s fishing success might be luck—think again. “We don’t try to out-tech ourselves; all these guys come in with all these gadgets and we think it gets away from the important basics,” says Dean. “We are real big on presentation. We pick a lure based on the color of the sky, the clearness of the water, and how deep we are fishing.”

“Kylie and I figure out what color lure we think the fish will pick up on,” he adds. “Also, you want to keep in mind the bait fish of the water you’re fishing in.”

LONG LIVE THE FISHER QUEEN

Kylie is a business major at UB and is currently on a leave of absence from the university to pursue her aspirations of fashion design at Buffalo State College. “I would like to have a fashion degree from Buff State and a business degree from UB when this is all over,” states Kylie. She is currently modeling for Bella Fashion Boutique at fashion shows throughout the fall semester, one of which is a breast cancer fundraiser at Sub-Zero this coming November.

Being able to fish competitively has its perks, though—especially the notoriety and cash prizes. Yet, Kylie will never forget the importance of long fishing outings spent alone with her dad.

“I’ve been fishing as long as I can remember,” Kylie says. “I fish because my dad got me into it and it’s good quality time with him.”