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Posts: 89
| I remember the first time I was in Boulder Junction as a kid in the '70s. There was a 27 pounder in the box at Northern Highland out of Oxbow. I asked the guy behind the counter "No 30 lbers?" I can still remember the look I got. Also remember the fish that won the Marathon the year prior was a 46 lber out of Boulder. I believe that was 1976 and I was there in 1977.
There was a study done by Gilbert and Sass that looked at the Vilas County Muskie Marathon results from 1964 to 2010. I am going from memory on all of this but I believe the top ten average size went from 52.8" to 48.4" in the time period. Dr. Scramm looked at the study and came to the same conclusion Tony Rizzo did at the time and that was too many muskies due to catch and release crowding each other out and restricting top end growth. The study did find that average length of all muskies registered had a significant increase however. Again I am going all from memory. |
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Posts: 89
| I will add my own theory and that is what is hard to quantify is how many big fish went unreported as time went on and pressure increased. |
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Posts: 166
Location: Cedarburg, WI. | Just last summer in Northern Wisconsin i had a follow pushing wake all the way to boat and was lucky enough to get a real good look at her as she turned sideways bailing on me at the first turn of the 8... Heartbreaker. Never saw her again even days later. So it goes..
That fish was every bit as big as anything i've seen in Canada. This includes follows and strikes from fish that got seasoned guides fired up! Hahaha. I firmly believe they are still out there, just way better odds other places in my opinion. |
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Posts: 645
Location: Duluth | Growing up in the UP it was always common to hear stories in bars about the 50lb musky that got away while walleye fishing the Menominee, or hear that dudes buddy works at the hydro and a 60 inch fish was caught in the gates. etc. It's all part of the fun, especially when you hear the story from a guy who fishes exclusively for bottom feeders 
I do firmly believe the biggest fish in some of these low density systems rarely get seen let alone hooked. |
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Posts: 8
| The problem in weighing the fish was that it out weighed the zebco hanging scale we had I think somewhat less than 35 lbs max. The other problem was of course the fish was bloated and beginning to decay. So we had to wrap him or her in a fish net to keep him or her together. We got an old brass fish scale from one of the tourists who had done deep sea fishing. Probably not an accurate scale and the needle never stayed still. the scale was One of those long brass ones, probably about 18 inches long. so now we had to figure a place to hang the fish We did get the paper to come out and had lots of pictures, but in writing to the Minocqua papers and the approximate date they could not locate the story. I wrote to an muskie book writer and he wrote back, that of course lots of stories but once dead and bloated there really is little written. So we were just a bunch of young kids weighing and measuring a dead and bloated and decaying fish. Those of you who have some experience and knowledge, does the fish weigh more or less when bloated, and is the length more or less, and the other question the bigger fishes are the male or female? |
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Posts: 532
Location: NW WI | R/T - 3/21/2023 11:35 AM
I will add my own theory and that is what is hard to quantify is how many big fish went unreported as time went on and pressure increased.
Agreed. Equipment that couldn't handle giants, cameras not owned, food on the plate vs a possible name on the paper.
The fading fables I believe are due to the fact everyone has cameras,immediate means of communication, and skepticism nowadays.
The other personal truth I believe is the recoreded citings of the past. Land or water, species thrived in respect to numbers and size. It's not unreasonable to believe the all tine record has gone through the circle of life multiple times unknown,unseen, and untouched. Human impact hasn't hardly ever been positive. That's why its so vital to support organizations that fight to counteract our impact. |
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Posts: 1418
Location: Brighton CO. | The last time I entered a fish in the Vilas Co. Musky Marathon was 1979. (Of course the Marathon is long gone) We go to Lakes and they are very busy ,but we don't say where. We all kept the same secrets. |
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Posts: 355
Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | sworrall - 3/19/2023 5:20 PM
When I moved to Wisconsin in the early 70's there were lots of tails about muskies longer than the boat is wide than the boat. Not so much now, seems like the old plaid #*#* exaggerations are fading away.
I like this one from a great coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers up here and the Vikings down there, Bud Grant, who passed away a couple weeks ago:
https://www.startribune.com/a-fishy-record-chasing-tale/512306992/
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Posts: 8
| I really liked the Bud Grant story, I was never a great or even good fisherman, but as a young boy visited all of those lakes and flow ages mentioned. My parents and grandparents have been gone many years so I will never know what drew them from Northern Illinois to the Hayward area. |
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Posts: 89
| I enjoyed the Coach Grant story as well. Thanks for sharing. Wish Coach would have caught his fish then we could have put this Hayward thing to bed once and for all!
Of course unbeknownst to Coach Grant, according to Mr. Ramsell's research the Malo fish was actually 55" and 56 lbs and came out of The Chip in the winter. Not a 60 lber but still a huge fish. |
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Posts: 8
| After doing some reading on record muskies I am thinking my memory is probably pretty accurate. Based on the following
About 30-40 people saw the fish. There were multiple pictures taken. We believe the head was mounted, since the body was deteriorated . It was a large fish but not the record, the records are about 70 lbs and about 70 inches. A good 15-20 lbs heavier than the fish we retrieved and just under a foot shorter than the record. And of course the 4 years that my brother was the boat boy for the resort the legend was told around the bars and restaurants of Minocqua and he or she actually had a name "old Granddad" So somewhere on Squirrel Lake are 60 year old pictures of the fish and probably the mounted head. We think the head was mounted and kept at the Mariana across the lake where there were gas for boats and a small store. We think it was Brown's resort. But are unsure of the name. |
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