A Fish with HooksMusky an ongoing Wisconsin passionby Paul Smith, Outdoors Editor, JSOnlinePosted: Oct. 24, 2009Sixty years ago Wisconsin was buzzing.
It started with three tremendous splashes and two pistol reports. Soon the party lines in every home and cabin around the Chippewa Flowage were ringing: "Spray caught a giant," spread the word.
The day was Oct. 20, 1949.
A crowd quickly gathered at Herman's Landing outside Hayward. There they saw Louis Spray, a well-known Hayward businessman and angler, with a musky of record proportions.
The fish was hoisted on a game pole and photographed, then loaded into an automobile and taken to the Stone Lake post office for weighing.
"It filled the whole trunk!" said one observer.
No wonder - the fish was 63.5 inches long and 31.75 in girth. The post office scale read 69 pounds, 11 ounces.
Louis Spray stands next to the mount
of the 69-pound, 11-ounce musky he
caught in 1949 in the Chippewa
Flowage near Hayward.Well-documented but not without dispute, the fish dubbed
"Chin Whiskered Charlie" by Spray is recognized as the world record by the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame.
The musky is a fish that lives "large" in every respect - in physical size, in the food chain, in record-book controversy, in angling lore and in its attraction for anglers.
Nowhere is the musky more deeply woven in a state's culture, history and economy than Wisconsin.
It's our state fish, of course. And we have the world's biggest musky - 4˝ stories tall at the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward.
Fifty-thousand visitors tour the musky and other displays each year, said Emmett Brown, executive director at the hall. Some even get married in the giant musky's mouth.
"The musky has a hold on us and it's not letting go," summarized John Dettloff, a historian, author and fishing guide in Sawyer County.
Big Ten cachet is fine, but Wisconsin is also home to the University of Esox. Taken from the fish's Latin name, the schools, run by Wisconsinites Steve Heiting and Jim Saric, impart a musky education.
Musky angling has been popular for most of the last century, even drawing President Dwight Eisenhower to Wisconsin in the 1950s.
But perhaps no year will ever top 1949 in the annals of musky history. On July 24 of that year, Cal Johnson of Teal Lake landed a 67.5-pound, 60.25-inch musky on Lac Courte Oreilles. The fish broke the existing mark held by Spray.
Cal Johnson holds the 67.5-pound
musky he caught July 24, 1949, on
Lac Courte Oreilles near Hayward.Johnson was an outdoors writer and acclaimed angler who at one time supplied fishing reports to The Milwaukee Journal. In poor health, he took his doctor's orders and retired to northern Wisconsin - sort of.
He did not assume a sedentary life as prescribed. In fact, he fished hard, eventually hooking his record fish while casting. He beached the musky after a one-hour battle; significantly, he did not dispatch it with a firearm, a formerly common musky angling practice.
The fish was certified and became the world record - for less than three months in some circles, still in others.
The International Game Fish Association, based in Florida, still lists Johnson's musky as the world record. The IGFA won't recognize Spray's fish because it was shot with a pistol before being landed.
Record or not, Johnson's health improved. He even outlived his doctor.
The first public showing of both Johnson’s and Spray’s fish was at the Milwaukee Sentinel Sports Show in 1950. Spray’s mount was destroyed in a fire in 1959; Johnson’s is still on display at the Moccasin Bar in Hayward.
The relatively heavy fishing pressure, loss of spawning habitat due to human development and common "catch-and-keep" practices of anglers in the middle of the 20th century put a crimp on the state's musky population.
That didn't stop a generation of anglers from being bitten by the "musky bug."
While on a family vacation in Eagle River in 1974, Marc Wisniewski saw his dad, Hank, catch a musky on Cranberry Lake. The dark, handsome fish made an impact on the 11-year-old boy.
Marc Wisniewski of Greenfield holds a
musky caught in northern Wisconsin this
year, one of 504 legal-size muskies he
has caught and released in the last
35 years."This is a fish that makes your heart skip a beat just when you see it follow your bait," said Marc Wisniewski, now 47 and from Greenfield.
The next summer Wisniewski boated three legal muskies. The passion remained - he has now landed 504 legal muskies.
“It still makes me weak in the knees,” said Wisniewski.
These days, Wisniewski doesn't need to drive hours to the North Woods to get a musky fix.
The fish has enjoyed a resurgence in recent decades.
Buoyed by conservation groups like Muskies Inc., a strong catch-and-release ethic among anglers and increased stocking and other fisheries management practices, muskies are found in more state waters today and are providing higher catch rates to anglers than ever.
Originally found in about 20 counties in northern Wisconsin, today muskies are present in 711 lakes and 80 rivers in 48 counties, including Pewaukee Lake in Waukesha County, just 20 minutes from downtown Milwaukee, and the Madison chain, just a cast from the Capitol.
Anglers' practices have changed dramatically, too. In 1958, an estimated 107,000 anglers were catching and keeping 47,700 muskies a year, based on a state license survey.
The ranks of musky hunters grew to an estimated 421,000 in 2006, but anglers today release 99% of the fish to grow bigger and fight another day, according to surveys.
Legendary as the "fish of 10,000 casts," muskies are now being caught in Wisconsin in about one-third that time. And big fish are becoming more common. The number of fish 48 inches and larger has increased steadily since 1970 and was at an all-time high in 2008.
Having more fish in more waters has helped keep the musky fire burning in the next generation of anglers.
Rachel Piacenza caught her first musky at age 11 on Wabikon Lake in Forest County. Now 25, the Green Bay resident admits to being "fully addicted" to musky angling.
Rachel Piacenza, of Green Bay, holds a
50-inch musky caught in Oct., 2009, on
the waters of Green Bay."It's the highest goal in fishing, for me," said Piacenza, who credits her uncle John Aschenbrenner with showing her the musky ropes. "No other fish has it all."
Thanks to a stocking and recovery effort of a Great Lakes strain of muskies, Piacenza recently caught her first 50-incher on Green Bay.
Though waters in Canada and Minnesota garner lots of mention as a potential site of the next world-record musky, the Wisconsin waters of Green Bay and Lake Michigan are entering the conversation.
"It would only seem right, coming from Wisconsin," said Piacenza. "I intend to try."
So will 7-year-old Carson Lehnherr of McFarland. Fishing with his father, Gary, in the Professional Musky Tournament Trail championship in Madison recently, the youngster reeled in four legal muskies, bringing home the grand prize of a boat, motor and trailer package.
The second-grader didn't miss a day of school. But he did bring his waist-high musky trophy to show-and-tell the next day.
Only in Wisconsin.Send e-mail to psmith@journalsentinel.com
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