Cal Johnson’s 1947 world record musky creates a new splashby Terrell Boettcher, News Editor, Sawyer County Record
Friday, December 18, 2009Status attacked, defendedThe world record status of the muskellunge which first put the Hayward area on the fishing map has come under attack recently by an Illinois-based organization.
The World Record Musky Alliance (WRMA) earlier this year issued a report stating that based on scientific analysis of old photos, Cal Johnson’s musky cannot be as large as listed: 60 1/4 inches long, 33 1/2-inch girth, 67 1/2 pounds in weight. The fish was caught by Johnson on July 24, 1949 in Lac Courte Oreilles.
The Cal Johnson musky, whose mount is on display at the Moccasin Bar in Hayward, is listed as the all-tackle angling world record by the Florida-based International Game Fish Association (IGFA). The other world record-keeping organization, the Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward, lists another muskellunge as the all-tackle conventional angling world record: the 69-pound, 11-ounce fish caught by Louie Spray in the Chippewa Flowage on Oct. 20, 1949. The Hall lists the Cal Johnson musky as the unlimited line class world record.
The WRMA bases its assertions on the science of photogrammetry, as practiced by DCM Technical Services of Toronto, Ontario. DCM analyzes old photographs of fish to determine how large the fish actually are. In its report, the WRMA claims that DCM’s analyses of three old photos shows the Johnson fish to be no longer than 52 inches.
However, WRMA’s claim is hotly disputed by the Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame, the IGFA and by the descendants of Cal Johnson. Johnson’s grandson, Cal III, said he is “very mad” that the WRMA is calling his grandfather and the witnesses to the weigh-in liars.
Earlier this year, the IGFA rejected the WRMA’s effort to get the IGFA to disqualify the Cal Johnson muskellunge world record. In a letter to WRMA president Rich Delaney, the IGFA’s conservation director, Jason Schratwieser, said, “We simply do not feel that the photogrammetry analysis is sufficient for us to rescind this record. I do appreciate the time and passion that your organization has put forth on this, but we are resolute on this matter.”
Hall of Fame statementEmmitt Brown, executive director of the Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward, said the claims presented by the WRMA “have been floating around for a while now.” He said the WRMA report “is the usual drivel from the usual suspects touting the usual flawed and self-serving logic and science as fact. The fact is, Cal Johnson's 1949 record muskellunge is on public display at the Moccasin Bar in Hayward. It’s the original fish in its original form. It is, unquestionably, a 60-inch fish."
Documenting that fact “is that when you look closely at the scales that run lengthwise on the fish (mount displayed at the Moccasin Bar), they are all perfectly intact,” Brown said. “There’s not one disruption of the scale lines running back and forth. They quite conclusively prove that that fish was not augmented. There is no ‘filler’ put in to make it 60 inches. It’s actually 60 1/4 inches. I’ve talked to several taxidermists about this. They say that even using today’s technology, there’s no way you could augment a fish and not disturb that scale line, much less (likely) that it was augmented 60-some years ago in 1949. Both lines and scales are absolutely undisturbed from the tail to the head of the fish.”
Moreover, a photo of Johnson and his fish and fishing rod, never before published until this issue of the Sawyer County Record, shows conclusively that the fish is as long as listed, according to the Johnson family and to musky fishing historian John Dettloff.
“Our history is important, and it must be accurate,” Dettloff said. “This is a very famous piece of outdoor history for Hayward. It’s something Hayward should be proud of. There’s a little clique of people trying to shoot it down. I’m sure it’s based on jealousy.”
Cal Johnson died in 1953 and his son Phil inherited all his personal papers, six huge storage boxes going back over 100 years. The family loaned Dettloff items for the Hall of Fame’s museum and possible articles. Among those papers was the photo of Cal and his fish together with the rod he caught it on, a medium action South Bender 411 (4-foot 11 inches). He was using Gladding Invincible 30-pound test line, a Perfect-O-Reno reel and a South Bend Pike-O-Reno lure.
Dettloff bought an identical South Bender 411 rod on E-Bay. It measures 58 3/4 inches. The photo of rod and fish shows that the WRMA’s claim that the fish is 52 inches long is “totally absurd,” Dettloff said. “Their preconceived goal is to make the fish smaller than it is. The WRMA report is done with a lot of slants and innuendo,” he said. (Editor’s note: The WRMA report is available on the Internet at
www.worldrecordmuskiealliance.org.)
Looking at the camera angle and distance of the photographer from Johnson and his fish, “the rod is in the same plane as the fish,” Dettloff said. “The fish is longer than the rod. It’s in the ball park of 60 inches.” Johnson himself stood 5-foot-9 inches. The fish’s tail is about one foot above the ground and its head is two-three inches above the top of his head. There’s minimal distortion.”
"Looking at the WRMA report, I am so glad we have the "rod photo" of Cal with his fish and the rod next to his fish.” I feel this photo is critical in further verifying his record catch as it gives a simple and very accurate length corroboration to his musky's reported length of 60 1/4 inches. I want to stress that, because the rod and the object it is measuring (the fish) are more or less the same length, it gives a much more accurate calculation than when merely using a much shorter line segment (such as the eye to upper jaw distance) as a known distance.
Back in July 1949, Johnson’s fish was weighed on two certified scales. The certification was sent to Field and Stream magazine. Two days after receiving a letter from Johnson, the magazine certified the musky as the world record. They requested an affidavit attesting to the accuracy of the scales, and the names of two to three additional witnesses to the weighing and measuring. Field and Stream “treated this fish with the full scrutiny that a world record deserves,” Dettloff added.
The affidavit signed at the fish’s weighing-in contains Johnson’s statement that he caught the fish legally with rod and reel and without assistance from public waters “in full accordance with the good ethics of true sportsmanship and while practicing the rules and regulations governing all-tackle sport fishing.” The affidavit is notarized by John Moreland and signed by other witnesses.
In an article on his catch, Cal Johnson said the new world record muskellunge’s “stomach was empty. Its body did not have a blemish. It is planned to display this great fish at many sportsmen’s shows, but its permanent home will be in Hayward Wisconsin, near the waters where it grew to such prodigious size.”
The mounted musky was unveiled in Hayward on Aug. 28, 1949, with Gov. Oscar Rennebohm witnessing it.
As far as the mount at the Moccasin Bar is concerned, Dettloff said “it’s hard to measure, because it has minor curves and mounts do shrink.” The mount “is in the five-foot ball park. There’s nothing glaring against it being a five-foot fish.”
The skin mount was produced by taxidermist Karl Kahmann in 24 days, much less than the usual time frame, Dettloff said. “It’s a beautiful work of art. But they (WRMA) are calling Kahmann, the family and the witnesses liars.
“Keep in mind that even having the WRMA's eye to upper jaw calculation be off only one-half inch and it will skew their total length calculation by five inches,” Dettloff added. “I measured Cal Johnson's mount with a laser measuring device and did indeed find the WRMA's eye-to-upper-jaw calculation of 5.669 inches to be off by 9/16 of an inch. The actual measurement proved to be 6.25 inches when measured with lasers. This error alone is very significant and skews their result by five inches.
“Combine this error with the other errors and unsupported assumptions that they made (such as an underestimated difference in how much longer the musky's lower jaw is than the upper jaw, as well as the fact that all three photos that the WRMA analyzed were either of very poor quality or had critical end points hidden from view) and it should come as no surprise that their final length result of Cal's record musky was so far off and understated.”
Grandson respondsIn a Dec. 14 phone conversation with the Record from his home in Brownsburg, Ind., Cal Johnson III said he “definitely has a concern that (the WRMA) is calling my grandfather, the taxidermist and the witnesses to the weigh-in who signed the affidavit direct liars �” at the time they were very influential people in the Hayward area. They were well-trusted and none of them had any reason to lie. I’m not sure why anyone would want to do that sort of thing” that the WRMA is trying to do, he said. “I’m very unhappy that they (the WRMA) are calling these people liars. They’re making me very mad.
“It was a time (1949) where a few (record size) fish were caught, and they had a natural habitat to live in, where the fish would have a very strong chance to grow,” Johnson added.
The photo of his grandfather with the record fish and the rod he caught it with “shows that the fish obviously was 60 inches,” he added. Also contrary to the WRMA assertion, the fish is rectangular with a squared-off shoulder, and has a “broad rib cage” to carry its girth and weight, he said.
His family provided Dettloff with a lot of documents, photos and articles written by Johnson that they saved over the years, Johnson added.
“I know my father was the utmost in being honest, correct and truthful, Cal III added. “He was the most truthful man I’ve ever known. He never told me a lie and I’ve lived by that standard my whole life.”
A conservation pioneer“The sad thing (about the WRMA’s attack on Johnson) is that Cal did so much in his lifetime to set the stage for so many of us to make a living” in the fishing and tourism industry, Dettloff said. “He opened the door. He was a pioneer. He championed conservation and environmental issues when it wasn’t popular in the 1920s and ‘30s. He wanted to save the sport for future generations. He saw the bigger picture: sportsmanship, ethics, conservation, size limits. This (world record musky catch) was something he accomplished toward the end of his life. His doctor told him three years previously that he had three to six months to live, with a heart condition and rheumatic fever. When he caught this fish, he knew it might be his last day. He was an outstanding citizen in our sport.”
Louie Spray fishAs readers may recall, there was a similar dust-up between the WRMA and official record-keepers four years ago concerning Louie Spray’s world-record fish from the Chippewa Flowage. The WRMA’s consultant at that time also used photogrammetric methods.
Following an investigation, the Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame board of directors upheld the Spray fish as the all-tackle conventional angling world record. The power-trolling record is a 65-pounder caught in 1988 by Ken O’Brien on Huron Bay, Ontario.
In its January 2006 report, the Hall said “After a careful and objective review of every aspect of the WRMA report over the past three months, the Hall has ruled that the report lacks sufficient merit to overturn the Spray record.”
The WRMA report’s primary piece of evidence, which alleged that Spray’s musky was only 53.6 inches long, came as a result of a “computer software program that relied on multiple assumptions to be inputted before a result could be yielded,” Brown said. “Because no control was ever done to test the approach that was used and so many assumptions had to be made, there exists too much reasonable doubt as to the accuracy of their result.
“Quite frankly, it was poor science,” Brown said at that time.
In his book “A Compendium of Muskie Angling History” (Third Edition), musky angling researcher and historian Larry Ramsell presents a case for another musky to be the all-tackle angling world record: the fish caught in Middle Eau Claire Lake on June 6, 1954 by Robert Malo. Ramsell says it should be listed at 70 pounds. The mount of the fish is displayed at Dun Rovin’ Lodge on the Chippewa Flowage.
The Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame lists the Malo fish at an unofficial 70 pounds “because of its probable record-breaking size,” but with an asterisk stating it has “unofficial status because discrepancies existed in the weigh-in process for the record. Without such certification for absolute authenticity, we are obliged to list this catch as one of 70 pounds unofficial weight.”
http://www.haywardwi.com/articles/2009/12/18/news/doc4b2963814dfa7818738825.txt
