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| JohnMD sent in the text of this interesting/funny article from the Chicago paper.
Published June 3, 2007
HEBER SPRINGS, Ark. -- The Muskie Man is in repose, relaxed in his wide, thick-cushioned, green chair in the living room of his retirement home.
In the deep voice that belies his 80 years, former Chicago angler Fred Cairo tells his story. And it is a whopper. This fish story is not about the one that got away but the one Cairo visualized. During his days fishing the flowages and lakes of Wisconsin, Cairo pictured himself one-upping Louie Spray and reeling in the world-record muskie.
He fished and fished and fished for years, and he caught some industrial-strength muskies, but his passion exceeded his grasp. And now he is left with a fantasy. If he had caught the world record, what would it have looked like? If he caught the world record, what would the scene have been like?
So Fred Cairo imagined a 100-pound muskie mounted right onto the wall of his garage. And he imagined a painting of his younger, muscular self in a small boat, wrestling a 100-pound muskie out of the water, teeth sharp and glistening, straining body fighting a heavy-duty lure, right onto his bedroom wall.
Cairo wrote a short story about how he caught the world record that never existed. The real-enough fiberglass mount is 67 inches long with a girth of 34 1/2 inches. The mount weighs about 35 pounds. Spray's recognized record is 69 pounds 11 ounces, 63 1/2 inches long and 31 1/4 inches in girth.
Cairo's is a counterintuitive fish story. This fish story is not a lie. It's just not real. Cairo never has pretended he caught a 100-pound muskie. He never has pretended he hooked a 100-pound muskie that spit the hook and got away. He just acted out his fantasy for kicks.
"My goal was to get a world-record muskie," Cairo said. "My ambition was to catch a world record and I didn't. This is all to tell people what I thought a world's record would be like."
Before Cairo headed for this town of about 6,500 people an hour north of Little Rock 22 years ago, he was rooted in Illinois. Born in Chicago, Cairo grew up on the South Side, attended the University of Illinois and was a longtime Northern Illinois Gas Co. employee. He began fishing at age 6 and was an avid member of the Fox River Valley chapter of Muskies, Inc. Several plaques from the organization adorn the wall near the king of all muskies.
Cairo tells stories like a meandering river, tributaries included. He also has scrapbooks full of pictures that date to the 1930s when he and six buddies fished all over Illinois and Wisconsin. He first fished a relative's fruit farm in Hinsdale and "it lit me up like a Christmas tree. If I saw a puddle of water I'd try to see if there was something I could catch."
In 1948, Cairo caught his first muskie at Wabigoon Lake in Wisconsin and for the next 20 years he and his friends returned to the area.
"That kind of infected me," Cairo said of his introduction to muskie fishing. "I was fascinated by them. They're aggressive, but they can be very nonchalant. They can follow a lure to the boat and just turn away."
He caught a 54-inch muskie at Lake of the Woods in Minnesota and in 1985 he saw a 60-plus-inch muskie in Wisconsin. He returned several times to the same spot and saw the fish he called "the big girl" but couldn't catch it. Then it was gone. Maybe that was the muskie of a lifetime.
Cairo had his fake muskie mount made for $400 in the 1980s and he commissioned the painting in 1997, also for $400.
Cairo's wife Betty is also a muskie enthusiast and has caught 36-inch legal fish. She tolerates the gigantic mount, but a visitor can't help but notice it's located in the garage, not the living room.
"Oh, no," she said. "I didn't want that in here."
The mount once adorned a wall in a local restaurant, and boy, was it a conversation piece. Cairo placed a small plaque beneath the muskie as a disclaimer. Reading comprehension, however, does not appear to be the strong suit of those patrons.
People read the plaque and promptly asked, "Where did you catch it?" Or, "How long did it take you to catch it?"
Cairo wants to see the mount at the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward, and executive director Emmett Brown Jr. said he is amenable.
As Cairo laughs about the pleasure he has derived from the fake mount, it makes one wonder if it wasn't more fun for the Muskie Man than catching a real world record.
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Posts: 357
Location: Long Prairie, Minnesota | Good story! |
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| That's the kind of passion and dreaming that leads us into the sport. Sounds like a wonderful man to talk fishing with. |
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| I guess if your going to dream..... |
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Posts: 8793
| That's funny. Nice to see it's a fellow FRV member with a sense of humor. That said? If I ever caught a 100lb muskie, I'd quit. Sell all my gear and find a new hobby. What keeps me coming back is the chance at a bigger one, seeing a bigger one, beating my PB, having a day where I caught more muskies than my best day... Catching that fish that we've all seen and couldn't get to convert, catching one that's 50# some day... If the day comes that I catch a fish that dwarfs anything I could have imagined? I don't know that I could enjoy muskie fishing on the same way I enjoy it now. Knowing that you could fish your whole life and probably never do any better than you had already done? Hmph. I'd have to find some other sort of fishing. Maybe Peacock Bass in S America? Shark fishing in the keys? Noodling for catfish in Arkansas?...
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Posts: 2024
| I have a dream of stocking Greers Ferry Lake with musky... He lives closer to it than me. Maybe he can get it done... |
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Posts: 555
Location: Tennessee | this thread needs giant musky mount pics! |
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Posts: 456
Location: Kansas City BBQ Capitol of the world | Coulda, woudla. shoulda but it never happened and that's to bad but I applaud the gentleman for his effort and creativity. There are 10,000 guys going on that 10,000th cast laying in bed tonight chasing that same dream. ,
It would be super cool if a new world record was ever captured if it was referred to as the (name of the angler who caught it ) - (Cairo) fish to those who chased a lifetime of dreams but came up short.
Ron
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Posts: 150
Location: Central Minnesota | Great story. |
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Posts: 174
Location: Ontario | Thats an awesome story. The power of imagination and dreaming of that fish is what fuels the passion. Ive converted so many friends into fishing for muskie. I think a lot of times,its the stories of the the legend that makes them so excited.Catching one is the bonus. |
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| I knew the late Fred and can see him telling a story in his deep voice. |
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| This is an article my deceased husband wrote. Thank You for publishing it for all to read. Fred was an avid story teller. |
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Posts: 3873
| Great story, thanks. |
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| Fred was a great guy I used to see him at muskies inc meeting when I was a kid he gave me a spinner bait he used to make called the "master baiter" I have had it over 25 years and still give it some time in the water when I'm on lake of the woods |
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| The big girl still lives on 
That was a great story and a good one for remembering how I've been fortunate enough to chase the big girl |
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Posts: 78
| What an awesome story! I think most of us on here can relate to the passion that this man had. It's that passion (some would say craziness, obsessiveness, ECT..) that drives us to wake up before daylight and fish till it's dark again. To sometimes sit in a boat when the wind is nearly rocking us out of the boat or when it's so cold that our boats are full of snow and we are near frozen. Nobody who does not share this same passion could ever understand why in the world we do this! I wish I would have had the chance to meet this man and spent some time talking musky Fishin with him. Even so, his passion for the sport lives on strong thru the rest of us. I'm more than glad I clicked on this thread |
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