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Sidejack |
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Posts: 1080 Location: Aurora | |||
| true tiger tamer |
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| IGotTheFeverBIG |
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Posts: 43 Location: S. Wisconsin | |||
| esoxross |
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| sworrall |
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Posts: 32784 Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | |||
| ToddM |
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Posts: 20178 Location: oswego, il | It has been an great investigation and alot of push back. Hard to get past the iron curtain. Great work by everyone who seeks the truth!
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| IGotTheFeverBIG |
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Posts: 43 Location: S. Wisconsin | Sawyer County Gazette Winter, Sawyer County, Wisconsin, Thursday, July 27, 1939. "Our Region's Muskie Prizes Largest For Season; Over 48 and 46 Pounds" With copy prepared and ready to be printed featuring what seemed most certain to be the largest fish of the see if not all season, came a double surprise this (Thursday) morning when Louis Spray, over from Hayward with a tourist friend, brought in a new champion for the current season, a muskie which tipped local scales at 48 1/2 pounds. Besides coming so closely on the heels of its predecessor, the mammoth fish tops by a single ounce the 1938 champion tiger beauty - the 48-pound 7-ounce muskie secured last summer by Widmer Smith of Loretta, in Blaisdell Lake of this territories lakes region. Before departing for the county seat a large number of local citizens, tourists, and others witnessed the enormous prize fish. When questioned as to where they caught the muskie, Louie hesitated in divulging that secret, but it's known that whenever that former citizen of southern Sawyer county wants to obtain a big one, he comes back to old favorite haunts of this lakes region and he is usually successful in such endeavors. __________________________ For the news---read the Gazette. In case the images are too blurry to read, that is the exact text in the article. In the article next to this one it mentions "The new season-pace-setter was a forty-six pound six ounce tiger that Bob Mann of Winter, caught in our nearby popular Barker Lake." This is the fish that "tied" Louie's 46-pound 3-ounce, 52-inch fish out of the Chippewa Flowage caught over a week before this. Lou wasn't the type to "let it go". So Louie was able to top Widmer Smith AND break his tie with Bob Mann with this 48-8 fish. Such a gifted Angler... There are other inconsistencies with Spray's 1939 "WR" fish. Louie at first thought 58-9 was enough to bag the top spot, due to George Neimuth's 58-pound 4-ounce fish from LOTW on 9/24/32, and THAT is the weight he first claimed. Upon being told about the Haver Fish (58 lbs. 14 oz.) caught in June that beat Neimuth in correspondence, Spray changed the weight to 59-8, citing a typo. The man had no shame or scruples when it came to fish stories. I think he and all the old timers knew all fishing contests were cheaters folly... Spray had a pattern of behavior where he would "outdo" others who bested him by just a little bit and regain the top spot. (This happened with Widmer, Haver, and Cal.) He really seemed to push the boundaries of believability, I suspect because he had dirt on so many others in town, ranging from loaded muskies, gambling debts, prostitution, moonshining and bootlegging, and perhaps even fouler deeds. He practically DARED the locals to speak out against him. especially in 1949. More on that later. [I'd like to know why he had directions to distill chloroform in his autobiography...] Great perspective from Steve Worrall. I agree 100% with him about the interest surrounding the TRUE stories involving all those characters in the NorthWoods. There really is so much more to reveal about Spray, and not just related to World Record Muskies... In the meantime, we've lost some good men and women, and some of their wisdom, irreplaceable memories, and the wonderful experiences that they had to share. Lifetimes of knowledge, from an era now extinct, should be shared and passed down. Perhaps it's time to revisit this matter, before we lose any more of our wizened elders. So nobody knows what big event happened on October 20, 1949 at the Aladdin Inn?
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| supertrollr |
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| Larry Ramsell |
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| IGotTheFeverBIG |
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Posts: 43 Location: S. Wisconsin | Ramsell's post on the Malo fish does indeed help set precedent in showing how muskellunge were used as promotional currency all over the Pine Belt... and obtained by any means necessary... So from the Gazette Article we know conclusively that Spray's 1939 World Record, sworn by affafavit to be caught on July 27, 1939, was really a fish NO MORE THAN 48 1/2 pounds, probably "scammed" from Paul Petit. That 59 pounder never existed. No photogrammetry necessary. "Louie was a shyster."- Alton Van Camp. Van would know, he was a real backwoodsman... Here's an overlooked factoid in Louie's 1949 69-11 fish, the one that the HOF currently worships like a Pagan Deity. [I'm typing from a cheap smartphone with junk software, my image resizing capabilities are non existent] So here is the text from the image posted here: __________________ "The Spoils of Victory" "The first public announcement of Spray's new record catch was made on the evening of October 20th at the Aladdin Inn in Hayward at the annual dinner meeting of the Hayward Senior Chamber of Commerce. Remembering the boast he made to break Cal Johnson's record by fall, Louie Spray just couldn't resist announcing his claim of catching the new world record muskie to the startled group which had gathered to honor Cal Johnson for the catching of his record muskie earlier that summer. The Chamber had just presented Johnson with a trophy of gratitude from the citizens of Hayward for returning the world's muskie capital back to Hayward, when Spray made his big announcement. Louie had upstaged his friend, but Cal would later retaliate by threatening Spray with the yarn of an even larger fish having been caught." _____________ p. 213 of "Three Record Muskies in His Day; The Life and Times of Louie Spray" by John Dettloff. (Excellent, highly incriminating book. I recommend it.) So not ONLY did Louis Bolser Spray: (1) Send a telegram on August 28, 1949 to the VERY FIRST Hayward Musky Carnival where Cal Johnson's MOUNT of Old Evil Eye was first unveiled to the public, stating: "DONT GIVE AWARD YET. I WILL CATCH A NEW WORLD RECORD MUSKY THIS SEASON. SIGNED, LOUIE SPRAY." (After being read to the laughing public, Cal Johnson was then introduced, given a TROPHY from the PEOPLE of Hayward, and a MEDAL from the boys of Camp Big Chief.) Not ONLY did Louie: (2) Foreshadow his deed in an October 9, 1949 live radio broadcast on WCCO (held by Cedric Adams at Sarona's Potato Festival where Spray and Johnson were BOTH interviewed): "Cedric, you know the old saying, once a fisherman, always a liar? Now Cal here might have caught a bigger muskie than I did, but he ain't no bigger liar." But Louie Spray ALSO just happened to: (3) Beat Cal's record ON THE DAY OF CAL'S CoC AWARD, October 20th, 1949. He also "caught" Chin-Whiskers Charlie IN TIME to go and interrupt that Hayward Senior Chamber of Commerce annual dinner meeting as Johnson was being honored. He was able to wipe a stinky skidmark on yet ANOTHER one of Cal Johnson's TROPHY Ceremonies. He. Just. Couldn't. Resist. Can you imagine the looks on everyone's faces at that Award Ceremony at the Aladdin Inn? The sick feelings in the pits of their stomachs, upon hearing that (former CoC member, btw) Louie B. Spray was AGAIN going to put Hayward under the microscope with another one of his "performances"? After all the scrutiny and hard work in pulling off the Johnson HOAX? The whole Chamber of Commerce probably pooped their drawers right THERE. Cal must have thought, "My GOD! This RUBE is going to get everyone busted! WHY did I agree to participate in this SHAM?" I noticed everyone seemed to miss this last, MOST IMPORTANT coincidence regarding that ridiculous episode in Hayward's history. I think even Maina left it out of the impossible 10/20/49 timeline. It's right there in Dettloff's book, but written in a way to obscure what an impossible coincidence it was. We are supposed to believe Spray had yet ANOTHER world record sized fish SPOTTED after Cal Johnson took the record, Louie PREDICTED he would catch it, and when he CAUGHT it, it turned out to be just a little BIGGER than Cal's fish, AND was caught on the day of Cal Johnson's Award Ceremony, this time from the Hayward Senior Chamber of Commerce. AND he WEIGHED the fish (how else would he know he beat Cal?) AND made it there IN TIME to upset the whole evening... With. OUT. the. Fish. Would. NOT. Show. Anyone. And the HOF expects us to swallow this magically splendiferous, euphorically fantastical, ridiculously VAINGLORIOUS fish story... Why Spray didn't use his ExtraSensoryPerception to make himself rich at the horse track or casino is quite the mystery. Think of the personal sacrifices he made by instead using his clairvoyance to fish muskie and promote the Hayward Lakes Region. I guess Louie was just generous to a fault... Hey! Maybe we can get the Pope to canonize him as a Saint...? 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| muskie! nut |
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Posts: 2894 Location: Yahara River Chain | |||
| IGotTheFeverBIG |
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Posts: 43 Location: S. Wisconsin | muskie! nut - 3/11/2018 4:24 PM Reelwise - 3/1/2018 8:37 PM It's a shame people have potentially lied about the size of the fish they caught in Wisconsin... And New York This is NOT a knock on Wisconsin or Hayward, and ESPECIALLY not their citizens. I love Northern Wisconsin. The next WR, the first true 60 pounder, which WILL be caught in 2018 or 2019, might come outta WI, though it wont be an inland lake... The cheating happened everywhere. I'm sorry, but the top 28 muskellunge or so, all the way down to Mark Kontianen's 54 pounder, are questionable. Both the Resort owners AND the MAGAZINES like Field and Stream who held the contests were happy for the publicity. I want to underline that. The contest holders wanted the publicity and sales just like the resort owners wanted the tourism. Please obtain copies of any book written by the Pike Ferret, Jan Eggers. You will find the same phenomenon with European Pike. It's fantastically entertaining. Pike in Europe get girthier than even muskie. A lot can be learned studying photos of those brobdingnagian monsters... Attachments ---------------- WP_20180308_01_55_29_Pro.jpg (129KB - 539 downloads) | ||
| thompwater |
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| Jerry Newman |
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| Jerry Newman |
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