WEBVTT - Ep. 569: The Musky Wars 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:13.320 This is the Meeater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:15.720 bug bitten, and in my case, underwear. 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:19.280 Listeningcast, you can't predict anything. 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.800 The meat Eater podcast is brought to you by First Light. 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:26.079 Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:29.560 for el First Light has performance apparel to support every 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:32.400 hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:35.640 dot com. F I R S T L I t 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:41.680 e dot com. Hey guys, if you like watching the 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:45.720 podcasts from the meat Eater podcast Network on YouTube, you 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:47.640 need to get your little butt over to the meat 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:50.680 Eater Podcast Network, which is a whole new channel on 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:55.720 YouTube different from the normal me Eater YouTube channel. You 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.480 need to take action here. Go to the meat Eater 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:04.240 pod cast Network on YouTube and subscribe. Keep your subscription 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:06.680 to the other thing and you'll be subscribed to both 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.800 and you'll get all of our podcast videos there. Going forward, 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:12.679 they will not be where they used to live. Go 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:23.280 to the new place. Thank you. Like turn a machine on, Phil, 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:30.160 We're on, We'll start the show. Yeah, I was all 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:33.440 fired up, Yoanni just put one of those little magnifying 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:37.319 lenses in his in his thing. Yeah, because you lose 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:38.520 because your pins get blurry. 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:42.120 Oh my gosh, having two pins, well I still have 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:43.360 two pins about seeing four. 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:45.360 Yeah, you're gonna want to take it right back out. 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:48.120 Here's what you're gonna want to do. I went down 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:49.240 that whole path. 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:52.240 Okay, and this is in the peep site. 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:56.560 Yeah. So when you're when you start getting old man vision, okay, 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:59.760 and you need reading glasses, your pin when you're shooting archer, 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:04.200 your pin and gets blurry and so you know it 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:06.880 starts to affect your accuracy. So then you get go 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:08.760 down and get one of them little what they called. 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:14.080 Yeah, it's a claire no, yeah, go clarify whatever helps. 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:15.120 Yeah, and you put it in and you can get 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.079 different magnifications, right, and you look and you're like, it's 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.040 like the heavens have opened and there's your pin and 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:22.360 all that's glory. 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:25.680 And this is my experience to a t. 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:27.679 Okay, and you think this is the greatest thing in 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.480 the world. I'm gonna start just you know, Robin Hood 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:33.200 and all my arrows. Then it's gonna happen. You're gonna 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:37.760 wind up in Hawaii, right, it's gonna be getting dark. Okay. 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:40.520 You're looking in that thick vegetation, and here comes a 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:41.200 black hog. 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:43.600 I think I was there for this. 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:47.160 You're gonna pull back and you're not, and you're not 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.880 even gonna be able to see the hog. The hog 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:53.840 will cease to exist, and you'd be like, what happened? 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:57.800 And you let down and you look in areas and 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:00.520 then you draw back. How does he keep doing that? 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:03.240 And you let don look, he's still there and you 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:07.240 draw back. That's what's gonna happen to you, my friend. 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:15.600 Joy Today by Muskie Fisherman Guide author someone who's devoted 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:20.679 his life to muskie history, Larry Ramsell Ramsell, Ramsell, What 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:25.320 do you like? Larry Ramsel Ramsell fresh out of Wisconsin. 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:30.840 We recently we had a number of episodes recently where 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:34.040 we brought up controversies surrounding the muscle Lunge. How do 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:35.440 you like to say it? 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:38.520 That's proper Okay, we call him Muskies, of course, but 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:40.160 proper name is muscle. 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:42.760 N A lot of controversies around Muskies. Oh boy, people 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:45.240 being like I caught the real world record, but they 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:49.360 won't accept it. And we kept saying, and I said, 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.840 I'm gonna get a we should find a certified real 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:56.960 musky expert. A number of people wrote in saying, if 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:00.360 you're going to talk to the real musky expert, the 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:02.160 man at the end of the line. 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:04.800 Let's hope that's a turner phrase. 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:07.240 It'd be lair I just made that up. It's good. 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:09.640 It'd be Larry Ramsell right that down. 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:12.240 I may. I may not know what questions you're going 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:14.440 to ask, but I'll know the answer to at least 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:16.120 ninety five percent of them. 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:19.120 Here's one, I bet you know the answer to this. 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:21.680 How'd you wind up getting into muskies? How'd you get like? 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:23.920 How'd you become a muskie fanatic? You know? And are 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:25.280 you part of the muskie community? 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.680 Yes, I am. I'm lean it up to my ears. 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:32.799 My dad started with the neighbor, caught a nice fish 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:34.320 and then opened the door. 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:36.360 And where we went at what age? 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:41.080 Well, I was probably seven or eight when he started 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.120 catching him, but I caught my first legal one when 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:46.200 I was thirteen and been at it for three years. 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.080 Wow. You guys probably ate them back then, huh? 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:51.160 I ate every one of them. 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:53.840 Can I tell you like an apocryphal family story and 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:55.680 you can tell me if you've ever heard of this? Okay, 0:04:56.080 --> 0:05:00.520 perhaps apocryphal family story. My maternal grandfather was a musky fishermen. 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:02.000 I heard that on your podcast. 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:06.240 Yeah, he likes to talk about They would harness rigged 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:10.200 chipmunk yep and put it on a board out in 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:13.560 the pond, and then you paddle the shore and pull 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:16.480 the chipmunk off the board with your ride and then 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:18.320 let it swim around out there. Is that a true 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:20.880 musky fishing technique of days gone by? 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:29.360 Possibly? Okay, But you can substitute squirrels, cats, cats, anything. 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:30.599 So you've heard these stories? 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:30.720 Oh? 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:32.520 Yes, have you witnessed some of these stories? 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:33.640 No? Not that one? 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:38.240 Okay, So I can't tell Like, okay, I'm gonna keep 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:40.960 telling that story. Where'd you grow up? 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:45.680 I grew up in Illinois and we faced always in Wisconsin, 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:51.520 Hayward area, okay, started when knee high grasshopper and still 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:54.840 at it. Live three miles outside of town and go 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:56.400 to Canada to catch muskies. 0:05:57.480 --> 0:05:59.520 You don't fish Wisconsin much, not much. 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:02.680 I faced one half a day last week, but I 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:04.880 faced three weeks here in Canada. That's where the big 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:05.320 ones are. 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.279 Got it? If you had to define the musky community, 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:10.720 what would you say? It is? Like? Why is the 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:13.080 muskie community different than other fishing communities. 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:18.120 Well, they're a very dedicated lot and they're all very 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:23.320 conservation oriented, wanting to preserve the species. Got it the 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.960 way the sport has increased in the last fifty years. 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.480 Had there not been catch and release come into vogue, 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.200 there wouldn't be any left, do you think so? Absolutely, 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:35.400 guarantee they had to fry them all. They would have 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:42.039 fried them all, you think. So. It takes some five 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:45.039 to six years before they spawn, and they're not very 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.640 productive at that raid, and then they'll live to twenty 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:52.920 to thirty years old, and it takes a long plime 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.000 to for them to get there, and they're too valuable 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:58.560 to catch just once. There's legions of stories of the 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.920 same fish being called multiple times due to catch and release, 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:06.120 which takes the pressure off the fishery and shows that 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:08.359 catch and release does work if they're properly handled. 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:10.320 Well, was the last time you ate one? 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.440 Oh, it's been quite a while. I can't even remember 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:15.200 the taste, but I will tell you they were good. 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:15.720 Yeah. 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:19.880 What was the favorite preparation back then? 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.120 My dad liked to skin them and then have Mom 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:26.560 bake them in a whole piece In fact, I had 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:28.400 my wife do on one time I left the head 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:30.080 on that she put an apple in the mouth the 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:33.840 whole seriously. Yeah, yeah, I've got a picture. It's pretty 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:34.320 cool looking. 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:35.440 How well he been married? 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:36.720 Which time? 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:38.640 Oh, the first time? 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:42.200 The first time was ten years, the second time was seventeen, 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:45.120 the third time was I don't know three or four? 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:47.520 What do you think those were all too much fishing? 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.440 Probably just give it a cumulative number then just say 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:51.960 forty one. 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:54.520 I've been living with the gal I live with now 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.440 for fifteen years, but we're not married, So that whole 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:00.160 scene's working out better than. 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.000 Has fishing torn you apart in your relationships. 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:06.040 I think there was a lot more to it than 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:09.160 just fishing. Yeah, I probably spent money. I didn't have 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:12.640 to spend chasing fish, but yeah, I got you shut out. 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:14.520 I should say, musky is the only thing I fished for? 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:17.880 Well, at what point were you just all muskies all 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:18.360 the time? 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:19.480 Right off the bat? 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:20.600 Is that right? 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:23.640 Yeah? I mean when I was a kid and try 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:26.240 to catch a walleye off the dock, you know, for 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:28.360 something to do, but when it was time to get 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:29.840 in the boat, it was musky road only. 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:31.320 Yeah, how many states. 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.679 You fish muskies in twenty two states and two provinces 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:35.199 of Canada. 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:37.600 Okay, how many states are they from? 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:40.839 Right now? There's thirty eight states that have muskies or 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:42.720 tiger muskies. No, no, no, no, I mean. 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:47.320 Where is the fish native to and where all has 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:48.199 it been spread to. 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:56.680 The upper Midwest Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:02.800 the Ohio River system through down into Kentucky. There's muskies 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:05.839 in Tennessee. They did at one time range as far 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:10.600 as northern Alabama native, but they're not there anymore, Okay. 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:15.400 And then you know, people started catching them and there's 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.000 such pressure got on the fisheries that the dn R 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:19.920 for inst in Wisconsin had to build two of the 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:23.080 world's finest musky hatchers just to keep up with the 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.120 harvest of one hundred thousand muskies a year. And they 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:29.200 just couldn't keep up with it. So that's why catch 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:31.480 and release and you called it two point oh, it's 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:35.800 been two point oh since the late seventies'. 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:36.840 Oh that's when the musky that's when catch and release 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:40.199 took hold so way before other fisheries. 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:45.680 Yeah, and what happened early on I analyzed it in reverse. 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:49.959 They did it wrong. As people got into catch and release, 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:52.840 they let the little ones go and kept the big ones. Well, 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.600 it should be just the opposite. And that's why now 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:58.440 the trophy waters. Like, for instance, in Ontario, when I 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:00.680 first started fishing there, the size it was twenty eight 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.120 inches a day, two fish per day. 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:04.920 Where was that again? 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:06.200 In what in Ontario? 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:08.720 Okay MEI limit again? 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:11.679 Pardon me? In Ontario it was twenty eight inches to 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:12.120 a day. 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:15.199 Okay, minimum size twenty eight inches, right, I got you. 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:18.319 Then after some studies were done and they found out 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:20.640 that there was two different strains of fish, and we'll 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:23.160 get into that probably a little bit too. But uh, 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:26.599 there are lakes that grow big fish and lakes that 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:32.080 never grow big fish. So Ontario picked out their trophy lakes, 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:34.960 the ones that had the potential to grow big fish, 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:37.720 and put a fifty four inch size limit on them. 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:39.880 Quite a change from the hell a jump, yeah, quite 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:40.920 a change from twenty I. 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:42.880 Remember everybody's worked up when when I was a kid 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:45.160 and they moved northern from twenty one to twenty four, 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:47.200 you just thought they'd you. 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.480 Know, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's you know, my dad never 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:53.360 released the musky's life. In fact, he netted one ones 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:58.760 that I released. It's because he wanted it back in 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:01.160 the boat. He wanted to eat it. That was just 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:03.320 I mean, that's that was the mode that he grew 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:06.560 up fish and muskies in. And uh huh, I couldn't 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:08.520 convince him to catch and release was a good idea. 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.160 So what's the difference between like a big fish lake 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.600 and a small fish lake? Is it forage or uh? 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.839 That's part of it, But the biggest thing is genetics. 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:22.319 Okay, and yeah, you think so. 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:24.839 Absolutely, But let me also clarify that I don't know 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:29.520 if I buy that, Larry, there are two different fish. Okay, 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.720 Doctor Lebaux tries to say there's two different species. The 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:36.480 most the fishery world isn't buying that, but yet they 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:38.080 kind of buy it when they went to a fifty 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:41.400 four in size limit for the trophy lakes. Well, the 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.560 lakes here's here's how it works. The lakes that's always 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:49.160 had muskies but never had pike are called alapatrick. Those 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:53.520 populations spawn once and have no competition from pikes, so 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.920 they don't grow. Big waters like the Saint Lawrence River 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:59.760 and the Georgian Bay and you know Lake here On 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:03.880 like Saint Clair, those waters have always had pike in them. 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:08.560 That's called sympatrick. So those fish have the potential to 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.000 grow big, and they've evolved a different strategy for spawning. 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:14.960 They spawn in deeper water then the muskies. In the 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:19.319 muskies only lakes and they spawn twice. That's because they 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:23.280 broadcast their eggs. They don't guard them. They don't like 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:25.400 a northern pike. When they spawn, their eggs will stick 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:28.520 to weeds, keep them out of the muck in the 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:31.040 bottom of the lake. The muskies they just dump their 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:33.160 spawning then where it goes, that's where it goes. So 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:37.000 that's why their reproductive percentage is very, very small, and 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:41.040 that's why the stocking where there's any kind of pressure 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:43.199 at all is necessary to keep the fishers going, even 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.080 if it's a native like let alone, one that started 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:50.960 out of being a stock lake. So it's just a 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:55.679 matter of the fish that evolved with pike evolved to 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:59.000 do things different and grow bigger. For instance, most of 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:01.880 the early studies that are done on eggs in muskies 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:05.280 were anywhere from one hundred thousand to two hundred and 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:11.200 fifty thousand with a big mature female. Big using the 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:16.360 term loosely, But what we found was that the bigger 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:21.840 fish in the simpatric waters like Eagle Lake or Georgian 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:24.840 Bay or sing Launch River, they spawn twice, and they 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:28.400 can have up to eight hundred and fifty thousand eggs, 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:31.120 and they have to spawn twice because they can only 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.760 mature fifty percent of the eggs in the first go around. 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:37.080 And then then they dumped that, and then a week 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:39.800 to ten days two weeks later, the rest of the 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:42.440 eggs mature and they spawn a second time. And the 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:45.160 second spawn is equally as important as the first spawn. 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:48.160 Now, this is sorry to interrupt it. Twice annually or 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:50.480 twice in a lifetime, twice in the spring, okay, so 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:53.120 twice every spring, okay now, And they spawned till they 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:55.480 get right up to the end when they went. You know, 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:58.719 if they're thirty years old, they're still spawning a lot 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:00.720 of people think that as they get old, their eggs aren't. 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:03.719 You know, they don't spawn anymore. The eggs are any good, 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:07.480 they're not viable. But that's not true. They do very 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:08.800 well right up till they die. 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:16.640 So what I want to get into the whole record 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:18.120 book question. But I want to lay out a little 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:23.080 more biology for biology for people. First, how could someone 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:25.560 when you said that, someone argues it's two species, I mean, 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:26.960 how could that possibly be true? 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:29.320 Well, they're sion, I mean, but they're not. 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:32.440 Like are they saying they're genetically separate and wouldn't be 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:33.120 able to reproduce. 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:35.520 Well, here's the thing. Back in the mid nineteen hundreds, 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:41.200 biologists tentatively agree or agree to agree that there were 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.400 three subspecies of muskies. There was one musky, but three 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:50.120 subspecies yep. So they went with that for a long time. 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.600 And then when it was discovered that we had alipatric 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:58.480 fish and sympatric populations that were totally different and grew 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:02.760 differently and spawned different then they change their thinking. When 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:05.720 doctor LeBeau did his doctoral thesis which I worked with 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.680 for the whole summer of nineteen eighty six on Eagle 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:13.680 Lake and Wabblagoon Lake in northwestern Ontario, his hypothesis was 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:19.480 that there are two distinct species of muskies, one being 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:23.000 the smaller strain or the smaller population the olive patrick fish, 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.640 and the big ones being the sympatric populations. The big 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:27.360 water fish. 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:30.640 Yep. So when you're when guys are when moskie guys 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:34.600 are saying that some lake has some strain, what are 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:38.040 they talking about? The probably the strain. 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:46.600 But are the fisheries producing these world class hatcheries that 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:50.560 you're talking about, Rather, are they producing a particular strain 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:51.920 of muskie. 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:56.920 They have just graduated to that now they're they're They're 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:04.200 big thing today is genetic preservation. This lake is genetically 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:06.200 different than this lake, then you don't mix them up. 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.880 For over one hundred years, Wisconsin raised fishing in their hatcheries, 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:14.360 stocked them wherever. In fact, in the early days they 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.320 put them on a train then every whistle stop if 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:21.200 you wanted some muskies for your lake, and meet them 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:23.880 with your horse and buggy, load them on your wagon, 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:26.000 and away you go, and nobody knows where they went. 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:29.840 So that's why there's no way today that they can 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:33.720 define which lakes were native musky lakes except the ones 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:35.480 that are connected to the river systems. 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:38.840 Gotcha, So they kind of lost track of the fish 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:39.280 for a while. 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:41.280 Well, they didn't even try to keep track. It was 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:44.480 nineteen thirty three before the wisconsinina Or even started keeping 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:48.480 stocking records, So everything that happened from nineteen hundred to 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:53.080 nineteen thirty three nobody knows. Of course, everybody's long gone now, 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:55.920 so there's no records anywhere what was done. And they 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:59.480 did that up until two thousand and six. We started 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.440 a battle with the DNR about we wanted a bigger 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:05.800 strain of fish. We wanted the Mississippi River strain, which 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:08.400 grow big, and they grow big fast. For instance, they 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:11.879 have been documented to grow up to fifty four inches 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:16.080 and thirty eight pounds in ten years. The Mississippi fish, 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.760 the Mississippi River strain, and these came out of Leech 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:22.400 Lake in Minnesota, which is connected to the Mississippi River. 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:24.520 So that's you know. 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:27.040 When you say we wisconsinights. 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.359 Yeah, we were trying to get the DNR to quit 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:33.360 getting muskies from wherever the hell they wanted to get 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:37.320 them and mix them all up and stock them because 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:40.240 they didn't grow and we proved that when we started 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:44.320 the fight. They hired a geneticist from the University of Wisconsin. 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.639 And what they had done is over fifty years they 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:52.159 had created a lake it's called Bone Lake in western Wisconsin. 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:56.320 It was not a native musky lake. So for fifty 0:17:56.400 --> 0:18:01.600 years they mixed whatever in there, and when we made 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:04.520 an issue of it, the geneticists said that they probably 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:07.760 have done is created a Hatchy strain of fish. In 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.199 other words, they'd take the eggs from there, raise them 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:12.040 in a hatter, and put them back in there, plus 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:15.360 stock from wherever they were getting their eggs from. And 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:18.440 he proved that that's exactly what they did, so he 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:20.520 shut them off from ever using that lake again. For 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:25.080 Riggs got it. So if you go to the Spooner 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:30.200 Hatchy Spooner, Wisconsin, they've got an area where you walk 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:33.760 into and you look down into the hattery floor and 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:36.560 around the windows. They've got pictures. In one of the 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.119 pictures they show them taking eggs from a twenty eight incher. 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:43.639 The genetics has said that's fine because you need to 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:47.760 have diversity. But what you don't know, particularly when you've 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:50.679 been mixing stocks for over one hundred years, is where 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:53.359 they came from. What are the genetics? Do they have 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:57.159 the capability to grow big? Which they didn't, And so 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:01.520 that's why we were wanting to change. Because the anglers 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:04.560 want fish to grow fast and grow big, and because 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.800 they grow fast they're very aggressive and they hit lures 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:11.399 a lot easier than fish that are, you know, fifteen 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:12.919 twenty years old, and they're this big. 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:17.960 But are you guys Are these guys chasing? Are they 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:20.320 just chasing because they want big fish? Or are they 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:23.439 chasing some thing? Like when you go back in the 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:25.720 historic record, you go back to the late eighteen hundreds, 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:28.440 you go back to the early nineteen hundreds, is there 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:31.800 something to suggest that back then there was a bunch 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:33.560 of giant muskies running around. 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:36.879 No, but every time a giant musky was caught, it 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:41.800 made big news, okay, And so that's that's what musky 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:44.399 fishermen fed on. And there's you know, there's different stages. 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.280 The newcomers they're happy to catch a thirty incher just 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:50.720 to say they caught a musky. But as you progress 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:53.040 in the sport, as you learn more, you learn how 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:55.600 to fish better. You go to lakes that have bigger 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:59.000 fish naturally, always wanting to catch more and more. 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:00.000 And more bigger, bigger, big. 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:03.960 And that's what I'm struggling. 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:08.000 To phrase a question I'm trying to ask you, be Uh, 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:12.720 is it musky conservation or is it just wanting big muskies, 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:14.280 and no matter how you get them. 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:14.840 It's combination. 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:15.440 Okay. 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:20.080 But here's the thing. There are some lakes that will 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:24.120 never produce a fish over thirty five pounds. More than 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:26.680 likely it's an alapatrick lake, although I've got an example 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:31.520 of the sympatric lake that's in that position. But so, 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:33.879 for instance, I used to tell people in my seminars, 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:37.280 if you're lake record where you're fishing is thirty five pounds, 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.040 guess what, You're never going to catch a world record 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:43.320 there because it doesn't exist that strain of fish, that 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:46.880 genetic pool doesn't have the potential to get big. 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:50.919 I don't know if you're familiar with the work of 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:58.560 what's Kaufman's first name, Carl Kevin montif and oh Matt Coffin, 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:03.080 Well they do. They work on mule deer, they work 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:07.479 on ungulates. No, I'm not from well, I don't know 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:11.879 that this is applicable. But they've gone in a totally 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.000 different thing, not even apples and oranges. It's farther apart 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:19.560 than apples and oranges, maybe maybe far apart. Musquie's and 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:25.639 mule deer m words. So they share ms. But here's 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:28.480 the thing. They go into all these areas, like in 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:32.159 their research, they go into these areas where it's like, oh, 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.960 it's genetics, genetics, genetics. Okay, these deer don't have the 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:37.800 right genetics. They're never going to grow big, they don't 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:41.560 have the right genetics. You can take those deer and 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:44.919 the areas that have the no good genetics and you 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:53.399 move them to a new place. Guess what one genetics. 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:55.199 It was? 0:21:55.920 --> 0:22:00.960 Uh, well yeah, but not just food for you. It 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:05.560 was food for your mother. Meaning when a when a 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:08.800 when a deer hits the ground, his his fate is 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:13.080 sealed when he hits the ground, Like you could tell 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:16.480 a lot about his potential antler growth already because it 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:21.280 was like what was his in uterow nutrition? Like right, 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:23.480 But I'm not getting into that with fish. I'm just 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:25.639 saying like all this this, and I don't know if 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:27.560 this is even applicable in fish, but all this idea 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:32.520 of like certain areas and certain counties having genetics is 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:37.919 is uh, it could be such a much more complex picture. 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:40.040 Oh absolutely absolutely that it's. 0:22:39.880 --> 0:22:43.359 That it's all these all these hidden factors and that 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:45.399 you could take those fish and move them to the 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.479 lake that has good genetics and somehow monitor them and 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:50.639 make it that they can't intermingle, and all of a 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:54.040 sudden you might realize that it wasn't genetics, it was 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:55.360 whatever the hell. 0:22:56.400 --> 0:22:59.439 Especially one example of the sympatrick population that I have 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:03.000 on mind, I've got some friends that fish there religiously, 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:05.040 and they're very good fishermen, and they've caught over a 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:08.879 nine hundred fish, but they've never caught a fifty incher, 0:23:09.160 --> 0:23:12.720 even though over there the population of fish that you 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:16.679 would think has the potential grow big. But they're in 0:23:16.720 --> 0:23:21.280 a lake with pike. But there's so few spawning areas 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:24.120 for the pike that the musks can control them quite easily. 0:23:24.920 --> 0:23:29.120 And so it's a what we call a trout lake. 0:23:29.480 --> 0:23:32.480 It's a deep clear and they feed mostly on trout 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:37.159 and probably small pike. But they just haven't evolved a 0:23:37.320 --> 0:23:41.399 need to get any bigger because the pike don't get big. 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:43.280 I mean, they catch a nice one veran's while, but 0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:47.160 most of them are you know, hammer handles. So that's 0:23:47.680 --> 0:23:53.000 a sympatric situation that if they were put someplace else, 0:23:53.080 --> 0:23:56.119 like a bigger water, if they were moved to the 0:23:56.160 --> 0:24:00.520 Saint Lawrence River or Georgian Bay, they probably would continue 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:05.080 to get bigger. They would have that potential, but because 0:24:05.119 --> 0:24:08.320 of the situation of where they're at, the forage, the 0:24:08.480 --> 0:24:13.320 cold water, the not having the need to get bigger. Yeah, 0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:16.640 they just have stopped at about almost fifty in there. 0:24:16.720 --> 0:24:20.919 They're keeping in line with their surroundings and ecosystem needs 0:24:21.359 --> 0:24:25.880 versus being in a bigger ecosystem. They could grow all 0:24:25.920 --> 0:24:28.320 they want and never outpace that ecosystem. 0:24:28.400 --> 0:24:30.879 Right right, So. 0:24:31.160 --> 0:24:33.120 Your girlfriend now, is she like to fish moskies? 0:24:33.400 --> 0:24:36.240 No bluegills with a barber worms? 0:24:36.520 --> 0:24:43.960 I'll go with her, Man steer your girlfriend, Larry? Where 0:24:44.040 --> 0:24:45.240 right now are the real big ones? 0:24:45.320 --> 0:24:45.359 Like? 0:24:45.400 --> 0:24:47.399 Who's going to catch the next record? Or is it 0:24:47.400 --> 0:24:48.960 too late? They'll never catch a new record? 0:24:49.000 --> 0:24:52.040 Well, lack Sul has the potential. What's that since that's 0:24:52.080 --> 0:24:54.359 what started this whole thing, me getting me involved Here 0:24:54.400 --> 0:24:56.960 at Laxul is where that's seventy to suppose it's seventy 0:24:56.960 --> 0:24:59.560 two pounder came from seventy two to two is what 0:24:59.600 --> 0:25:03.600 they call it officially. But that lake and you probably 0:25:03.640 --> 0:25:08.200 didn't know this is catch an immediate release only. Can't 0:25:08.280 --> 0:25:09.200 keep anything there? 0:25:09.480 --> 0:25:11.919 Okay, what tells where this lake is? 0:25:12.520 --> 0:25:16.480 It's in northwestern Ontario, Okay, or northern Ontario. It's it's 0:25:16.480 --> 0:25:18.720 getting towards the northern part of the Musky Range. 0:25:18.760 --> 0:25:20.439 And is it is it a Is it a big 0:25:20.560 --> 0:25:25.320 river chain, big reservoir, Oh, big reserv damned damned river system. Yep. 0:25:28.400 --> 0:25:30.240 And it's got some studs in it, It's got somes, 0:25:30.280 --> 0:25:32.280 got some big face. Now, there's never been weighed that 0:25:32.359 --> 0:25:35.880 I'm aware of of any over sixty pounds, but there's 0:25:35.880 --> 0:25:39.400 been a lot of sixty inch class fish, long, long face. 0:25:39.440 --> 0:25:42.240 In fact, I guided a friend of mine's son to 0:25:42.280 --> 0:25:46.000 a fifty seven incher there. So they get they get long, 0:25:46.400 --> 0:25:48.360 they just don't get seventy pounds. 0:25:48.520 --> 0:25:52.720 Sorry, yeah, uh, what do you think is the max 0:25:52.800 --> 0:25:56.560 they can get? Like I'm talking like gill Netted found 0:25:56.600 --> 0:25:58.720 dead on the beach whatever. 0:25:59.040 --> 0:26:03.440 All right, there's never been one hung on a scale 0:26:03.960 --> 0:26:08.679 that weighed more than the world records, the former world records. 0:26:08.920 --> 0:26:14.880 But I'm of the belief ninety five percent that most 0:26:14.880 --> 0:26:20.760 of them are bogus. Can I read this to you? This? 0:26:20.760 --> 0:26:23.119 This kind of covers a ton of stuff. This is 0:26:23.240 --> 0:26:25.520 written by Gord Pygor, who used to be the fisher's 0:26:25.560 --> 0:26:29.440 managers for the Lake of the Woods Area, Kenora, Ontario. 0:26:30.119 --> 0:26:34.200 And he's on my Modern Day Muskie World Record Committee, 0:26:34.680 --> 0:26:37.760 and he talks about in here doctor John Castleman, who 0:26:38.600 --> 0:26:42.040 your friend Patrick Dirkin wrote about in the thing he did. 0:26:42.600 --> 0:26:45.760 And doctor Casman is also on my committee, and he's 0:26:46.320 --> 0:26:50.400 acknowledged as the foremost musky scientist on the planet. Got it, Okay, 0:26:51.800 --> 0:26:54.800 if we could reduce the handling mortality of big muskies 0:26:54.840 --> 0:26:58.800 by only four percent, we would increase the musky population 0:26:58.920 --> 0:27:04.240 by a stagging, earring seventy percent. Think about think about that, 0:27:04.520 --> 0:27:06.480 I am. He'll explain a little more. 0:27:06.520 --> 0:27:07.200 Oh he better. 0:27:07.560 --> 0:27:13.800 Crossman and Castleman, Crossman was Castleman's teacher, were also able 0:27:13.840 --> 0:27:17.080 to show that the benefits of returning large muskies unharmed 0:27:17.080 --> 0:27:20.160 to the water resulted in an increase in the mean 0:27:20.280 --> 0:27:23.199 length of the fish, which was precisely the news that 0:27:23.320 --> 0:27:27.240 muskie anglers wanted to hear. But the Klethrum study, that's 0:27:27.240 --> 0:27:30.240 this bone here. This is what they use now to 0:27:30.280 --> 0:27:33.600 age how old a musky is. Yep, they used to 0:27:33.640 --> 0:27:36.120 use scales, but after age ten the edges were off 0:27:36.119 --> 0:27:37.080 and they weren't accurate. 0:27:37.320 --> 0:27:37.679 Got it. 0:27:38.080 --> 0:27:42.600 So that's why they went to this The calculated mortality 0:27:42.680 --> 0:27:47.080 rates musculine's mortality rates and compared them to the muscular 0:27:47.200 --> 0:27:50.480 mascimum age to see if the age of the trophy 0:27:50.520 --> 0:27:53.760 fish had changed over time, and they found that the 0:27:53.800 --> 0:27:58.040 maximum age of muskies may be in decreasing. In fact, 0:27:58.440 --> 0:28:00.720 they believe that the maximum may age of the fish 0:28:00.800 --> 0:28:03.720 may have decreased by two years from twenty three to 0:28:03.760 --> 0:28:07.600 twenty one years of age during the study period. Now, 0:28:07.640 --> 0:28:10.640 the difference of a couple of years may not sound significant, 0:28:10.640 --> 0:28:13.760 but remember that the fish spawn throughout their lives. The 0:28:13.800 --> 0:28:16.399 biggest musky lay of the lay more eggs in the 0:28:16.440 --> 0:28:20.640 smaller fish, and that the mammoth muscle engineerly always result 0:28:20.680 --> 0:28:24.000 from the very largest year classes. When we viewed in 0:28:24.040 --> 0:28:27.560 this context, Caslin Crossman concluded that we would need a 0:28:27.640 --> 0:28:31.880 seventy percent increase in annual recruitment to ensure the same 0:28:32.000 --> 0:28:35.399 number of free fish reached their maximum age and thus 0:28:35.720 --> 0:28:41.200 maximum trophy size. Follow that. M Okay, now, let me 0:28:41.240 --> 0:28:44.280 read your mind. I'll bet you're wondering if ninety nine 0:28:44.320 --> 0:28:47.640 percent of the muskies are being released, which is about 0:28:47.640 --> 0:28:50.160 what it runs you read my mind, at least ninety 0:28:50.160 --> 0:28:56.680 five percent. Yeah, how could the age of the oldest 0:28:56.720 --> 0:29:01.960 trophy sized fish be decreasing. Good question, right, Two likely reasons. 0:29:02.240 --> 0:29:04.880 The ranks of the musky fraternity are swelling at the 0:29:04.960 --> 0:29:08.720 same time that our knowledge base is better than ever before. 0:29:09.240 --> 0:29:11.960 There are quite simply more of us musky anglers. We're 0:29:12.000 --> 0:29:15.680 better skilled, better equipped, and we're catching more fish. And 0:29:15.760 --> 0:29:19.120 while we're putting them back. Catch and release only works 0:29:19.120 --> 0:29:22.200 if the fish survive, which means proper handling, and that's 0:29:22.240 --> 0:29:28.160 the big thing today. Or to put it, put it 0:29:28.200 --> 0:29:31.080 the way my good friend and legendary musky angler Dick 0:29:31.160 --> 0:29:38.960 Pearson excuse me, puts it like this. Take a look 0:29:39.000 --> 0:29:42.600 at any social media site these days, and you know 0:29:42.720 --> 0:29:47.520 that the the what he means. Got to give Dick 0:29:47.600 --> 0:29:50.920 credit to for walking the walk talk. He wrote The 0:29:50.960 --> 0:29:53.960 Amazing Muskies on the Shield, one of the most comprehensive 0:29:54.000 --> 0:29:56.680 how to books on musky fishing. But if you recall 0:29:56.680 --> 0:30:00.400 the front cover, it doesn't feature an angler holding am musky, 0:30:00.400 --> 0:30:03.520 as you would suspect, but rather a beautiful eke of 0:30:03.560 --> 0:30:06.360 the woods sunset. I know because I took the photo 0:30:06.400 --> 0:30:09.040 and gave it to Dick. He has caught more big 0:30:09.120 --> 0:30:14.000 muskies than almost any angler on the planet, and yet 0:30:14.120 --> 0:30:16.440 almost every time I call him for a photo to 0:30:16.520 --> 0:30:19.160 illustrate a feature on which I am working, and have 0:30:19.320 --> 0:30:22.320 interviewed him, he tells me he doesn't have any Gord 0:30:22.400 --> 0:30:25.200 writes for infishermen and he's on the Unfisherman TV show. 0:30:25.360 --> 0:30:25.600 Yep. 0:30:26.960 --> 0:30:29.800 He keeps his fish in the water at all times 0:30:30.160 --> 0:30:33.280 and handles them exactly like what they are, the proverbial 0:30:33.320 --> 0:30:36.680 geese that lay the golden eggs. And if we all 0:30:36.680 --> 0:30:39.200 did the same thing this fall for the rest or 0:30:39.360 --> 0:30:41.760 for the rest of our musky fishing careers, and in 0:30:41.800 --> 0:30:45.320 the process reduced the handling mortality of the oldest and 0:30:45.360 --> 0:30:49.200 biggest fish by just four percent, we would initiate the 0:30:49.240 --> 0:30:52.600 same effect as if we had increased the annual recruitment 0:30:52.640 --> 0:30:56.320 of muskies by a staggering seventy percent. In other words, 0:30:56.360 --> 0:30:59.520 the recruitment is poor. Yep. And if there's nothing he 0:30:59.600 --> 0:31:04.000 left to say, spawn is really poor. Let's give Castlemen 0:31:04.040 --> 0:31:06.840 and Crossman the last word on the subject. The largest 0:31:06.880 --> 0:31:10.960 trophy musculine in the population are usually the oldest individuals. 0:31:11.440 --> 0:31:15.760 The largest year classes produce the greatest number of old individuals. Hence, 0:31:15.840 --> 0:31:19.520 extremely large year classes are required to produce the largest 0:31:19.600 --> 0:31:23.280 oldest trophy musculench. If catch and release methods can be 0:31:23.440 --> 0:31:26.960 improved to reduce mortality, they would have the same effect 0:31:26.960 --> 0:31:32.640 as increasing recruitment and would help maintain year class strength, longevity, size, 0:31:32.640 --> 0:31:35.600 and number of trophy fish in the population. We don't 0:31:35.640 --> 0:31:39.600 need any more information, studies, nothing, It's already figured out 0:31:39.600 --> 0:31:42.800 by folks who've done the legwork. CPR is all fine 0:31:42.840 --> 0:31:45.520 and dandy, but more fish caught equals more dead fish, 0:31:46.040 --> 0:31:50.440 especially in the open deep water scenarios and with more 0:31:50.480 --> 0:31:53.080 ill equipped anglers. Just out for the ego shots. 0:31:54.480 --> 0:31:55.600 So what are ego shots? 0:31:55.760 --> 0:31:57.959 Ego holding the fish picture? 0:31:58.200 --> 0:32:00.600 Yeah, just for the no, real good not to hurt 0:32:00.600 --> 0:32:01.120 those fish. 0:32:01.520 --> 0:32:01.920 Pardon me? 0:32:02.080 --> 0:32:03.600 You know I got a real good way not to 0:32:03.680 --> 0:32:04.240 hurt the fish. 0:32:04.640 --> 0:32:05.000 How's that? 0:32:05.200 --> 0:32:06.560 Don't catch it, don't cat That's true. 0:32:06.600 --> 0:32:08.720 That's the best way, which I've done a lot of. 0:32:09.440 --> 0:32:12.800 But then, yeah. 0:32:12.120 --> 0:32:14.920 So do you think do you think that you're at 0:32:15.360 --> 0:32:21.400 how much has your fishing effectiveness changed over the years. 0:32:21.920 --> 0:32:25.520 I can't even calculate it. When I first started fishing, 0:32:26.120 --> 0:32:29.120 it's a long time ago. Boys, sixty eight years how 0:32:29.160 --> 0:32:33.320 old are you right now? We had a wooden rowboat, 0:32:34.120 --> 0:32:37.560 no depth finder, no electric motor, no big motor to 0:32:37.640 --> 0:32:41.960 run around like a crazy man they do today and 0:32:42.680 --> 0:32:45.440 cast to the shoreline. That's how That's how we caught 0:32:45.480 --> 0:32:47.480 our fish. That's what we knew. We were fishing Floyd's, 0:32:47.520 --> 0:32:51.000 which made shoreline fishing a little more productive. Open the big, 0:32:51.040 --> 0:32:54.320 open clearwater lakes. You found the shoreline, you catch three 0:32:54.400 --> 0:32:56.920 hundred northerns in a week. You won't catch a muskies. 0:32:57.200 --> 0:32:58.120 Been there, done that too. 0:32:58.560 --> 0:33:02.080 Explain all that again. Now you grew up casting the shoreline, right, 0:33:02.440 --> 0:33:04.440 and why would that not be effective? Now? 0:33:05.000 --> 0:33:09.360 Well, what's it's still effective on Floyd's type reservoirs where 0:33:09.360 --> 0:33:11.400 there's a lot of wood and hiding places. 0:33:11.480 --> 0:33:12.120 What's the word you use? 0:33:12.120 --> 0:33:12.640 The flowage? 0:33:12.800 --> 0:33:16.760 Floydge okay, like the river's dammed up and they call 0:33:16.840 --> 0:33:20.400 them Floyd's in Wisconsin. Reservoirs are the more. 0:33:20.240 --> 0:33:23.000 Commons is nodding knowingly over here because he uses the 0:33:23.080 --> 0:33:23.720 term flowids. 0:33:23.800 --> 0:33:26.400 That's what that means. That's his favorite lakes to Floyd is. 0:33:26.640 --> 0:33:28.840 Yeah, we were just talking about one of them Floyidges. 0:33:29.120 --> 0:33:34.120 So it's a reservoir, right, there's a flowage, same difference, gotcha. 0:33:34.360 --> 0:33:37.680 So reasonally called them floyd just because, as you know, 0:33:38.840 --> 0:33:42.200 starting the eighteen hundreds eighteen eighties, they started logging the 0:33:42.240 --> 0:33:46.880 whole state of Wisconsin, yep, and what was left was 0:33:46.880 --> 0:33:49.640 a mess. And a lot of that debris is in 0:33:49.680 --> 0:33:52.360 the in the watersheds. And when they put a dam 0:33:52.360 --> 0:33:56.040 in and made a floyage, that's what it looked like, 0:33:56.920 --> 0:34:01.000 flowed full of stuff. So oh okay, that's why they. 0:34:00.920 --> 0:34:03.880 Call him that debrisot right. Gotcha. 0:34:04.240 --> 0:34:08.319 In fact, where it was almost impossible to run over 0:34:08.400 --> 0:34:11.359 a motorboat wide open up a fairly new floidge, you're 0:34:11.640 --> 0:34:12.520 just risking death. 0:34:13.040 --> 0:34:18.440 I see. So back now that I understand that casting 0:34:18.480 --> 0:34:22.040 the shoreline when you were young, right, that's just how 0:34:22.080 --> 0:34:24.080 you went out and fished. You went out and went along. 0:34:24.280 --> 0:34:27.560 I know the strategy you're talking about, right, go on 0:34:27.600 --> 0:34:30.200 the edge, cast up towards the shore line again again again. 0:34:30.080 --> 0:34:32.240 Again, and you know, if you could find an offshore 0:34:32.280 --> 0:34:34.920 structure and the way we did it in those days 0:34:34.920 --> 0:34:37.799 with a rock and a piece of rope, no depth 0:34:37.800 --> 0:34:41.960 finders again, then you had a secret honey hole. Then 0:34:42.480 --> 0:34:46.160 as depth finders came on the scene, he was able 0:34:46.200 --> 0:34:49.080 to read the lake bottom without dropping your rope and 0:34:49.080 --> 0:34:55.760 your rock down. And so all of that increases your knowledge. 0:34:55.400 --> 0:34:58.000 Did you guys used to use the rock and rope strategy. 0:34:57.680 --> 0:35:02.319 Started early on? Yeah, or in the Floyd's that I 0:35:02.400 --> 0:35:04.399 was fishing. It was fairly shallow, so you could hit 0:35:04.440 --> 0:35:06.920 the bottom of the ore in most places and feel 0:35:06.960 --> 0:35:09.920 around down there, right. But then in the river channels 0:35:09.920 --> 0:35:10.920 you couldn't touch anything. 0:35:11.360 --> 0:35:11.640 Yep. 0:35:12.080 --> 0:35:15.480 But the maximum depth is like fifteen feet except for 0:35:15.480 --> 0:35:17.600 a hole by the dam that's thirty three feet deep. 0:35:17.680 --> 0:35:22.880 But the average depth of the whole lake is seven 0:35:22.920 --> 0:35:27.920 feet okay, so you know, then from that you graduated 0:35:27.920 --> 0:35:31.040 the bigger waters. We went to Canada to catch big muskies. 0:35:32.040 --> 0:35:34.600 We used our lake. The first trip up there, we 0:35:34.719 --> 0:35:37.839 used our lake shore casting and we caught three hundred 0:35:37.880 --> 0:35:42.600 northerns and no muskies. So we learned and get the 0:35:42.600 --> 0:35:44.279 hell away from shore and get out on the rock 0:35:44.320 --> 0:35:46.520 reefs and the deep weed beds and so forth. 0:35:46.760 --> 0:35:47.200 Got it. 0:35:47.239 --> 0:35:50.759 And that's the way all musky fishermen progressed. They learn 0:35:50.800 --> 0:35:52.879 a little bit of time. If the ones that are 0:35:53.280 --> 0:35:54.920 have a little money and are smart to hire a 0:35:54.960 --> 0:35:58.960 guide and cut their learning curve in half, and then 0:35:59.080 --> 0:36:01.239 you know, has more more new equipment comes out. The 0:36:01.600 --> 0:36:04.520 big thing now is forward facing sone arts. It's going 0:36:04.560 --> 0:36:07.959 to kill the musky populations if it's not controlled. It's 0:36:08.000 --> 0:36:10.520 just it's too easy to sharpshoot them. 0:36:11.600 --> 0:36:13.560 And it becomes explain that. 0:36:15.080 --> 0:36:17.320 I've got a friend that kind of helped pioneer it 0:36:17.360 --> 0:36:23.120 in Minnesota, run his boat sixty miles a day and 0:36:23.200 --> 0:36:26.799 make thirty five casts, and every cast was at a 0:36:26.840 --> 0:36:28.440 fish that you could see on the screen. 0:36:28.840 --> 0:36:32.000 Yep. And you're talking about like live scope. 0:36:32.239 --> 0:36:35.200 Yeah, live scope for forward facing snarts a difference. 0:36:36.200 --> 0:36:37.800 So do you have one of those setups? 0:36:37.840 --> 0:36:40.799 I do not, And I here's the thing. I'm madey 0:36:40.840 --> 0:36:42.920 two years old. I've got two bad shoulders that one 0:36:42.920 --> 0:36:46.279 needs replaced because of casting, because of casting. So you 0:36:46.320 --> 0:36:48.959 would think something like that would intrigue me very much. 0:36:49.280 --> 0:36:51.359 I don't want anything to do with it because it's 0:36:51.400 --> 0:36:52.480 not musky fishing. 0:36:53.760 --> 0:36:56.040 Well, let me do a little devil's advocating. 0:36:56.120 --> 0:37:00.479 Okay, I love it though, Okay, go ahead, thank you, 0:37:00.480 --> 0:37:01.040 you're welcome. 0:37:01.080 --> 0:37:04.640 Let me do a little devil's advocating. Don't you do 0:37:04.719 --> 0:37:05.760 you feel that. 0:37:05.800 --> 0:37:07.680 On behalf of those who don't like hard work. 0:37:08.080 --> 0:37:09.319 No, I don't. 0:37:09.440 --> 0:37:11.160 I don't have one of these contraptions. Now, if you 0:37:11.239 --> 0:37:13.360 look down across from you, and down that way you 0:37:13.440 --> 0:37:14.920 can see some real advocates. 0:37:15.080 --> 0:37:16.359 They're really outing them. 0:37:16.880 --> 0:37:18.200 Yea, you see some real cheating. 0:37:19.080 --> 0:37:20.280 We don't use musky fishing. 0:37:23.000 --> 0:37:25.080 They're used properly. I don't have a problem with it. 0:37:25.239 --> 0:37:29.400 Well, I'm more asking you to philosophize about the flow 0:37:29.480 --> 0:37:34.440 of technology. Don't you feel that you could have said 0:37:34.480 --> 0:37:40.560 the same thing about anything, monofilament? 0:37:41.880 --> 0:37:45.960 I mean like your death finder and your your You're 0:37:46.120 --> 0:37:48.640 I'm still using a rope in a rock, by god? 0:37:49.000 --> 0:37:52.359 Yeah, so how are you? Don't you feel? And I'm 0:37:52.400 --> 0:37:53.799 not trying to take you to task. I'm just like 0:37:53.840 --> 0:37:55.440 asking you to think about it, because you obviously thought 0:37:55.440 --> 0:38:00.000 about this a great deal. Uh, you and your life, 0:38:00.080 --> 0:38:02.480 as you laid it out, you have welcomed with open 0:38:02.600 --> 0:38:06.400 arms all form of technological innovation to a point. Okay, 0:38:06.640 --> 0:38:11.280 why is this the one that's going to break something? 0:38:11.360 --> 0:38:16.759 Here's here's what's gonna happen. It's gonna if if too 0:38:16.760 --> 0:38:20.320 many new people get into the game and they're not ethical, 0:38:21.840 --> 0:38:25.040 and they run around the lake and spotfish and cast 0:38:25.200 --> 0:38:28.239 him and catch him. There's one bass guy that did 0:38:28.239 --> 0:38:31.200 a film. He caught three over fifty inches and a 0:38:31.239 --> 0:38:35.480 half a day because he was using electronics. 0:38:35.600 --> 0:38:37.279 Right, He's like, I see what the big deal is? 0:38:37.360 --> 0:38:40.040 Right, So, but he had no concern in fact that 0:38:40.239 --> 0:38:42.160 you know what he was actually doing. 0:38:42.200 --> 0:38:43.600 But he wasn't throwing him out a stringer. 0:38:43.680 --> 0:38:45.480 And the thing of it is, we don't know if 0:38:45.520 --> 0:38:47.920 he knew how to handle him. He's a bash fishermen. 0:38:47.960 --> 0:38:50.320 They hold him by the lip. Right, try holding the 0:38:50.400 --> 0:38:52.239 musky by the lip. You have a sore thumb, and 0:38:52.320 --> 0:38:54.879 see what happens You get to the throwing up through 0:38:54.920 --> 0:39:01.080 your thumb. So it's making experts out of rookies, Yeah, 0:39:01.600 --> 0:39:04.200 almost instantly, And that's wrong. 0:39:04.719 --> 0:39:08.880 They say the same thing about turkey decoys. 0:39:07.200 --> 0:39:07.279 The. 0:39:11.200 --> 0:39:12.640 Motion decoys, same thing. 0:39:13.000 --> 0:39:17.160 But you know the the that's a hot topic, isn't it. 0:39:17.200 --> 0:39:21.080 The Yeah, the thing of it is is that, yes, 0:39:21.160 --> 0:39:23.799 you can control to an extent with size limits and 0:39:23.840 --> 0:39:27.800 bag limits. But since the muskie world is already ninety 0:39:27.840 --> 0:39:31.640 nine percent catch and release anyway, all we're doing is 0:39:31.680 --> 0:39:33.320 going to handle a hell of a lot more fish 0:39:33.360 --> 0:39:35.839 with a lot of new people that don't know how 0:39:35.880 --> 0:39:39.279 to handle them, which, as I just read, their mortality 0:39:39.400 --> 0:39:44.239 is the ultimate goal to eliminate it. So how do 0:39:44.280 --> 0:39:47.720 you educate one hundred thousand new musky fishermen to handle 0:39:47.760 --> 0:39:50.319 of fifty inch or properly in the first place is 0:39:50.440 --> 0:39:52.320 first time it flaps its jaws that we're going to 0:39:52.400 --> 0:39:53.759 drop it in the bottom of the boat and it's 0:39:53.800 --> 0:39:56.520 going to flop around and tip tackle box over and 0:39:56.560 --> 0:39:57.200 whatever fish. 0:40:00.160 --> 0:40:01.920 Is the proper way to handle a muskie? 0:40:03.280 --> 0:40:06.040 Well, the best way is like was mentioned here about 0:40:06.080 --> 0:40:08.879 dick Pearsons, leave them in the water boat side. There's 0:40:08.920 --> 0:40:11.400 floating rulers that you can get to lay alongside and 0:40:11.480 --> 0:40:15.120 see how long they are. Nobody agrees with weighing them. 0:40:15.120 --> 0:40:18.560 If they're not a record class fish or your person 0:40:18.800 --> 0:40:19.319 seems like. 0:40:19.239 --> 0:40:21.160 The last one, you'd wind away because those are the 0:40:21.160 --> 0:40:25.080 big ones of the big breeding females right right. 0:40:25.080 --> 0:40:29.640 It's like in Florida where you cannot get a grip 0:40:29.719 --> 0:40:32.640 and green with the tarpin cannot unless you buy a 0:40:32.680 --> 0:40:33.799 tag and you want to kill it. 0:40:35.000 --> 0:40:38.080 Then it's legal. Groups you can, Oh, it's against the 0:40:38.120 --> 0:40:40.319 law to take a grip with a tarpin. Yeah, so 0:40:41.040 --> 0:40:43.800 getting in the water with them and taking pictures. 0:40:44.040 --> 0:40:46.560 But you gotta you have to have the intent. You 0:40:46.600 --> 0:40:49.360 have to purchase the tag and have the intent to 0:40:49.480 --> 0:40:52.880 weigh it for a record, and then everybody's okay. So 0:40:53.000 --> 0:40:55.600 that's tarpin conservation. 0:40:55.120 --> 0:40:59.600 Which means it's almost a totally limiting handling mortality. 0:40:59.680 --> 0:41:01.479 Unless I want to just buy a tag and bank 0:41:01.480 --> 0:41:02.360 of fish, right. 0:41:02.440 --> 0:41:04.760 And how money they're gonna kill doing that? Not that many? 0:41:04.920 --> 0:41:10.360 Well do you do? You routinely see uh, poor handling 0:41:10.440 --> 0:41:14.760 methods among newer muskie fishermen, and then good handling methods 0:41:14.760 --> 0:41:16.280 among older muskie fishermen. 0:41:16.680 --> 0:41:18.759 Some older musky fishermen that don't catch a lot of 0:41:18.840 --> 0:41:20.200 muskies do not handle them either. 0:41:20.239 --> 0:41:21.280 They don't get the practice. 0:41:21.360 --> 0:41:23.400 I mean there are there are not an easy fish 0:41:23.400 --> 0:41:26.120 to handle. Yeah, particularly when you're talking to thirty five 0:41:26.320 --> 0:41:29.080 thirty forty forty five fifty pounds. That was a forty 0:41:29.440 --> 0:41:30.399 forty pounder right there. 0:41:30.480 --> 0:41:31.920 That's a forty that I'm gonna just hold this up. 0:41:31.960 --> 0:41:33.719 Some people can see that you're gonna shred your thumb. 0:41:33.880 --> 0:41:36.080 Yeah. Now, what you have to consider there is is 0:41:36.160 --> 0:41:38.920 even though they're sharp and long, there's a lot of 0:41:38.920 --> 0:41:40.759 meat on the on the base of the teeth. So 0:41:40.800 --> 0:41:42.359 you're not going to see that much when you see 0:41:42.360 --> 0:41:44.960 the fish, but maybe that much. Yeah, you'll see and 0:41:44.960 --> 0:41:46.880 that'll go through your finger. In fact, a friend of 0:41:46.920 --> 0:41:49.120 mine running fifty six inches tooths all the way through 0:41:49.120 --> 0:41:53.000 his thumb out through the thumbnail. These teeth are razor 0:41:53.040 --> 0:41:55.239 sharp on one side and they're dull on the other side, 0:41:55.239 --> 0:41:57.759 and that's for a purpose. That's when they grab a 0:41:57.800 --> 0:42:03.400 bait fish. The sharp helps penetrate quickly, but the round 0:42:03.480 --> 0:42:08.040 sides keep it from ripping and making the holes bigger 0:42:08.040 --> 0:42:10.800 and bigger, and the forage can get away. 0:42:10.920 --> 0:42:13.440 When we were in high school, we were having bbygun wars, 0:42:13.440 --> 0:42:16.600 and this dude named Tristan out the slabs at Cedar Creek, 0:42:17.400 --> 0:42:20.000 he caught a baby that went through his finger and 0:42:20.040 --> 0:42:21.839 out the fingernail. That's excruciating pain. 0:42:22.040 --> 0:42:23.200 I can imagine. 0:42:25.080 --> 0:42:28.600 Back to like though, if you are Larry gonna catch 0:42:28.600 --> 0:42:30.880 a musky and you do want to get a picture 0:42:30.960 --> 0:42:35.239 with it, you gotta make sure you keep it in 0:42:35.280 --> 0:42:39.480 the net, like with the face up. A lot of 0:42:39.520 --> 0:42:42.319 the times muskies will get in the net and thrash too, 0:42:42.480 --> 0:42:45.160 so those hooks will get caught on the higher side 0:42:45.200 --> 0:42:47.520 of the net and kind of hang the fish up 0:42:47.600 --> 0:42:50.560 higher seat. That's a very common thing. You gotta make 0:42:50.600 --> 0:42:53.000 sure you get that hook off keep the fish's head 0:42:53.120 --> 0:42:53.760 in the water. 0:42:53.920 --> 0:42:55.799 Right. A lot of the musk nets, if today, have 0:42:55.880 --> 0:42:59.560 a real deep bag and like a ranger boat's fairly 0:42:59.600 --> 0:43:02.880 high shot but not ridiculous. But these deep bag nets 0:43:02.880 --> 0:43:04.839 can keep the fish down in the water with the 0:43:04.920 --> 0:43:06.759 with the rim of the net on the gun of 0:43:06.840 --> 0:43:07.200 the boat. 0:43:07.560 --> 0:43:09.720 You guys using barbleous No. 0:43:10.040 --> 0:43:11.960 But there's a lot of guys that are saying that's 0:43:12.000 --> 0:43:12.840 what should be used. 0:43:13.280 --> 0:43:16.120 Do you use live bait there's I used. 0:43:15.960 --> 0:43:19.000 To, I don't, I don't anymore. But if you use 0:43:19.200 --> 0:43:22.080 what we call quickset rigs, I have no problem with it. 0:43:22.239 --> 0:43:25.239 But problem so far I've seen is some of the 0:43:25.320 --> 0:43:30.000 guides are not using quickset rigs to set quick There's 0:43:30.040 --> 0:43:33.560 a destroying the whole thought process of what do you 0:43:33.560 --> 0:43:37.239 want the musk You do is grab your sucker. There's 0:43:37.280 --> 0:43:41.240 two trouble hooks on the sucker, and you said immediately 0:43:41.280 --> 0:43:42.839 and you should hook the fish just like if they 0:43:43.040 --> 0:43:45.120 grab one of these lures there, yep. 0:43:45.920 --> 0:43:49.480 Whereas the harness rig they kind of have a little 0:43:49.520 --> 0:43:51.640 thing that or a hook that you can put through 0:43:51.680 --> 0:43:53.200 the nose of the sucker. 0:43:53.680 --> 0:43:55.719 Goes through the nostrils to hold it on the on 0:43:55.760 --> 0:43:56.080 the rig. 0:43:56.320 --> 0:43:56.560 Yep. 0:43:57.040 --> 0:44:01.200 But I gf a forens. If you use a sucker 0:44:01.200 --> 0:44:04.719 for muskies, you won't accept it though. Yeah, if just 0:44:04.880 --> 0:44:08.560 the legal method in Wisconsin, which it is in all 0:44:08.560 --> 0:44:11.200 of Wisconsin, IGFA wouldn't accept it if you called a 0:44:11.200 --> 0:44:15.480 seventy five pounder. That's just their rules. 0:44:14.680 --> 0:44:17.160 They don't want people to use live bait. 0:44:17.200 --> 0:44:18.120 They don't want light bait. 0:44:18.560 --> 0:44:24.440 Here's a question about the IGFA. Uh, you're familiar with 0:44:24.440 --> 0:44:28.040 the Boone and Crocket Club. Yes, okay, Boone and Crockett 0:44:28.040 --> 0:44:35.279 Club has different categories, so as you'll find. Oftentimes the 0:44:35.320 --> 0:44:40.800 biggest specimen known to man was not killed by a hunter. Okay, 0:44:40.880 --> 0:44:43.520 the biggest big horn, right, the world record, the biggest 0:44:43.560 --> 0:44:47.480 big horn ever recorded was found dead. The biggest black 0:44:47.480 --> 0:44:52.080 bear found dead. I think the biggest white tail found dead. Right. 0:44:52.440 --> 0:44:54.000 It's just kind of weird that it always winds up 0:44:54.040 --> 0:44:58.000 being that the really big ones are found dead. Is 0:44:58.040 --> 0:45:02.560 the IGFA interested in and how big do they get? 0:45:02.719 --> 0:45:05.520 Are they only looking at fish that conformed to their 0:45:05.560 --> 0:45:06.640 own little. 0:45:06.480 --> 0:45:12.160 Rous pretty much? It IJFA started in nineteen thirty nine. 0:45:12.480 --> 0:45:16.360 It was pretty much a rich man's game at that point. 0:45:16.880 --> 0:45:20.880 Big offshore yachts and you know money people. 0:45:21.000 --> 0:45:23.360 Yeah, yeah, like Billfish and all that got. 0:45:23.160 --> 0:45:27.480 It right, and they were totally salt water until nineteen 0:45:27.520 --> 0:45:32.279 seventy nine. I started the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame 0:45:32.320 --> 0:45:36.080 World record program in the early seventies, and Field and 0:45:36.080 --> 0:45:39.200 Stream at that time was the other record keeper in 0:45:39.280 --> 0:45:43.200 fresh water, and they got upset with us, and they 0:45:43.200 --> 0:45:45.760 tried to get us to cease and desist and whatever, 0:45:45.800 --> 0:45:48.680 claiming that those records were theirs. And our attorney told 0:45:48.719 --> 0:45:50.840 them to go fly a kite. Those records belonged to 0:45:50.880 --> 0:45:53.200 the people who caught the fish, and they're in the 0:45:53.239 --> 0:45:55.200 public domain. We can use them if we want to, 0:45:55.239 --> 0:45:57.600 and we did, and then they backed off, So they 0:45:57.640 --> 0:46:02.359 eventually turned their freshwater program were to IGFA. Until that time, 0:46:02.400 --> 0:46:07.760 IJFA had no use for fresh water whatsoever. So somewhere 0:46:07.760 --> 0:46:11.280 along the late seventies we decided to try to merge 0:46:11.280 --> 0:46:14.960 the two programs IJFA in the Hall of Fame. So 0:46:15.000 --> 0:46:17.279 I flew to Fort Lauderdale, where they were headquartered at 0:46:17.280 --> 0:46:21.040 the time, and we had a meeting with Elwood Ka Harry, 0:46:21.040 --> 0:46:22.959 who was the president at the time, and they. 0:46:22.880 --> 0:46:26.520 Got that big it's a big marlin out front, right, Yeah, 0:46:26.600 --> 0:46:27.200 a big silver. 0:46:27.360 --> 0:46:29.400 I don't remember if they did it in the Fort Lauderdale. 0:46:29.440 --> 0:46:31.520 They probably did Fort Daney a beach where they're at now, 0:46:31.680 --> 0:46:35.960 Rondini Beach. But anyway, it was going to work out 0:46:35.960 --> 0:46:40.680 where there'd just be one record keeping program. Well, the 0:46:41.120 --> 0:46:44.080 one stipulation that the Hall of Fame wanted is they 0:46:44.080 --> 0:46:47.360 wanted the IGFA to allow them to print the records 0:46:47.360 --> 0:46:53.359 in their publications, and IJFA wouldn't allow it until after 0:46:53.400 --> 0:46:55.960 they'd published it. Well, that didn't set well with the 0:46:56.000 --> 0:46:57.839 founder and the director of the Hall of Fame. So 0:46:57.880 --> 0:47:00.000 he he was smart when he turned over the record 0:47:00.200 --> 0:47:02.759 He made copies of everything. So he just reconstituted the 0:47:02.760 --> 0:47:07.600 program and back again, back again. We came with two programs. 0:47:08.440 --> 0:47:13.640 Hell uh, I was a representative for IJFA for sixteen years, 0:47:14.000 --> 0:47:18.680 and when the Musky War started, I got crossways with 0:47:18.800 --> 0:47:22.760 the worst Musky War the world records. The Musky Wars 0:47:23.160 --> 0:47:26.200 started ninety two, and what. 0:47:26.480 --> 0:47:27.680 You have to explain that? 0:47:27.719 --> 0:47:33.560 But when you're ready, okay, let's let's jump horses hair 0:47:33.600 --> 0:47:35.359 for a second. Let's go back to the seventy two 0:47:35.400 --> 0:47:39.280 pounders and work backwards. Okay, that seems to be a logical, 0:47:40.040 --> 0:47:40.960 logical way to do it. 0:47:41.000 --> 0:47:42.279 I want to hear about the musky war. 0:47:42.960 --> 0:47:43.440 We'll get to that. 0:47:43.480 --> 0:47:44.040 We're going to get there. 0:47:44.120 --> 0:47:45.959 Yeah, that's that's a big thing. Oh, by the way, 0:47:46.280 --> 0:47:48.960 Musky's Canada they even put release that's the name of 0:47:48.960 --> 0:47:54.600 their magazine, Release Journal, the Release Journal. Yeah, that's how 0:47:55.080 --> 0:47:57.680 gung ho Musky fishermenar for catching. 0:47:57.440 --> 0:47:59.200 Right, man, those guys wud probably have to ship fit 0:47:59.239 --> 0:48:00.920 if you went spear fish and muskies. 0:48:00.920 --> 0:48:01.160 Man. 0:48:03.400 --> 0:48:06.879 Since you've brought up again the release thing, I want 0:48:06.880 --> 0:48:10.640 to know what makes the fish so fragile that this 0:48:10.760 --> 0:48:14.120 improper handling can cause such high mortality. 0:48:14.400 --> 0:48:21.480 Most musky fishermen net them and then you people do 0:48:21.640 --> 0:48:23.879 not to handle them. Well, bring them in the boat. 0:48:24.719 --> 0:48:27.440 They're strong, and the fish are flopping all over the 0:48:27.480 --> 0:48:30.680 bottom of the boat beating himself all the hell. So 0:48:30.760 --> 0:48:33.440 then they get them unhooked. If they ever get them unhooked, 0:48:33.640 --> 0:48:36.120 then the muskie jumps out of the net and he's 0:48:36.160 --> 0:48:37.920 flopping around the bottom of the boat and trying to 0:48:37.960 --> 0:48:41.719 bite somebody on the leg. Anyway, the fish pretty much 0:48:41.760 --> 0:48:44.760 beat himself up. So if you release them in the water, 0:48:45.480 --> 0:48:46.920 obviously the only thing you're gonna have to do is 0:48:46.960 --> 0:48:50.000 reach down with the flyers back the hooks outlay a 0:48:50.080 --> 0:48:52.160 measuring stick alongside them to get an idea. 0:48:52.360 --> 0:48:55.440 I mean, well, isn't there an idea here? And it 0:48:55.480 --> 0:48:57.360 goes the same for like big pike too, but a 0:48:57.440 --> 0:49:00.719 muskie and a pike or ambus predators. 0:49:00.760 --> 0:49:02.480 They're not the first cousins. 0:49:02.600 --> 0:49:06.960 They're not designed to go on these big, long marathon runs. 0:49:07.239 --> 0:49:08.600 They're like a mountain lion. 0:49:10.000 --> 0:49:12.040 Dive bomb out of the tree, fight real hard for 0:49:12.400 --> 0:49:16.960 hopefully a very limited amount of time sprinters versus marathon runners, 0:49:17.160 --> 0:49:19.359 so that they're not going to be able to deal 0:49:19.400 --> 0:49:22.400 with this big build up of lactic acid, so it 0:49:22.440 --> 0:49:26.560 takes them way longer to recover, and during that recovery 0:49:26.600 --> 0:49:33.400 period they're susceptible to predation as well, or in the 0:49:33.400 --> 0:49:35.640 case of your older fish, they may just not be 0:49:35.680 --> 0:49:36.799 able to recover from it. 0:49:37.600 --> 0:49:43.279 Yeah, they are terrific speed demons for short distance. They 0:49:43.280 --> 0:49:45.760 can go sixty miles an hour for a short burst. 0:49:46.560 --> 0:49:49.120 That's why all the major fins are at the back 0:49:49.160 --> 0:49:52.640 of the fish. When they wind up, they wind up 0:49:52.680 --> 0:49:55.520 into an S shape and it's just like shooting a 0:49:55.560 --> 0:49:56.479 bow out of an arrow. 0:49:56.560 --> 0:49:57.000 How fast. 0:49:57.000 --> 0:50:00.399 Can they hit sixty miles an hour for a short distance? Oh, kid, 0:50:01.920 --> 0:50:04.839 if you're in a twenty foot boat, they can go 0:50:04.880 --> 0:50:06.640 from one end of that boat to the editor of 0:50:06.680 --> 0:50:09.680 the boat before you can blink. That's how fast they are. 0:50:10.560 --> 0:50:13.520 But they can't keep it up. In other words, if 0:50:13.520 --> 0:50:15.879 you if I've got a friend that likes to play 0:50:15.920 --> 0:50:20.560 them before we land them, we always have getting on 0:50:20.600 --> 0:50:23.319 his case saying you're gonna get in the snag and 0:50:23.360 --> 0:50:25.160 lose the fish, just so you hurry up and get 0:50:25.200 --> 0:50:26.400 it till we can get it and let it go. 0:50:27.040 --> 0:50:28.919 Because if you if you play them for a half 0:50:29.120 --> 0:50:32.439 like you're just there's stories in the older if there's 0:50:32.440 --> 0:50:35.320 stories in the old days of an hour fight or 0:50:35.360 --> 0:50:38.120 a half hour fight or forty five minute fight. If 0:50:38.160 --> 0:50:40.800 anybody takes more than five minutes to land the fish, 0:50:41.200 --> 0:50:44.120 unless it's a really big one, they're messing around with it, 0:50:44.280 --> 0:50:46.560 or they don't have have enough equipment to handle the fish, 0:50:46.600 --> 0:50:48.400 and they shouldn't be fishing for him in the first place. 0:50:48.560 --> 0:50:51.400 Now, you'll hear when somebody hooks a muskie, you know, 0:50:51.600 --> 0:50:57.440 oftentimes keep rerailing, keep reeling, keep reeling. You know a 0:50:57.440 --> 0:50:59.160 lot of guides, you know you can get the fish 0:50:59.160 --> 0:50:59.560 of the boat. 0:50:59.640 --> 0:51:02.960 Yeah, because if you keep realing, you're keeping tension on 0:51:03.000 --> 0:51:05.919 the fish. The minute you give them a split suck 0:51:05.960 --> 0:51:07.320 and of slack, they're gone. 0:51:07.680 --> 0:51:10.399 A lot of the times they eat that bait so hard, Yeah, 0:51:10.560 --> 0:51:13.320 that they just have they're clamped on the bait. You 0:51:13.560 --> 0:51:16.239 never really got a hook set in there. 0:51:16.680 --> 0:51:18.680 When I was working on the track instead of Eagle 0:51:18.760 --> 0:51:23.200 Lake in eighty six, we would put them in the 0:51:23.280 --> 0:51:26.480 tank of anesthetic and put them to sleep so that 0:51:26.520 --> 0:51:28.840 we could put a transmitter in them so we could 0:51:29.000 --> 0:51:32.160 pump their stomach to see what they've been eating. We 0:51:32.280 --> 0:51:34.919 had one big fish, it was probably a thirty five 0:51:34.960 --> 0:51:39.080 pound fish, and we put a mouth spreader. You know 0:51:39.120 --> 0:51:41.160 what the mouth spreader is. Put a mouth spreader in 0:51:41.200 --> 0:51:43.040 the fish to hold it over till we could put 0:51:43.080 --> 0:51:45.799 the tube in to flush the stomach. The fish is 0:51:45.800 --> 0:51:52.799 dead asleep, just squashed that mouth spreader completely closed, just 0:51:52.880 --> 0:51:55.640 that fast, and it's a sleep. That's the power they 0:51:55.719 --> 0:51:57.680 got in those jaws. So a lot of times they'll 0:51:57.680 --> 0:51:59.879 grab that bait. They might be hooked or you think 0:52:00.080 --> 0:52:02.160 hook for three four, five minutes, and all of a 0:52:02.160 --> 0:52:03.959 sudden they look at you and they opened the mouth 0:52:04.040 --> 0:52:06.600 or they shake their head and poof. They never had 0:52:06.600 --> 0:52:06.960 a hook in. 0:52:07.000 --> 0:52:10.080 Them that bait, particularly that bulldog right there. If you 0:52:10.120 --> 0:52:12.640 look at that bait, there's teeth marks on it. That 0:52:12.719 --> 0:52:14.960 fish that I caught on that bait did not have 0:52:15.000 --> 0:52:16.839 a single hook on it. As soon as it hit 0:52:16.880 --> 0:52:21.359 the net, opened its mouth lure Chester, Yeah, as soon 0:52:21.360 --> 0:52:23.399 as it hit the net and opened his mouth. 0:52:25.200 --> 0:52:28.160 In the fall, particularly when I used to do a 0:52:28.160 --> 0:52:30.480 lot of sucker fishing, they would grab the sucker and 0:52:30.560 --> 0:52:33.560 my dad would always raise them up to see how 0:52:33.560 --> 0:52:35.279 big you are, because we didn't want to catch a 0:52:35.280 --> 0:52:39.040 small one. And a lot of times as they get 0:52:39.080 --> 0:52:40.880 up to where you can see him, they let it go. 0:52:41.719 --> 0:52:43.359 But if you drop it back down, they'll come right 0:52:43.400 --> 0:52:44.160 back and hit it again. 0:52:44.200 --> 0:52:45.200 Because he never got hooked. 0:52:45.440 --> 0:52:47.839 He never got hooked, but he never got stung either. 0:52:48.480 --> 0:52:51.000 And he's hungry. He once had he once said, sucker, 0:52:51.000 --> 0:52:52.480 but he ain't gonna let you get a look at him. 0:52:55.120 --> 0:52:58.279 We've had him drop it and pick it up three two, three, 0:52:58.320 --> 0:53:02.080 four times. And sometimes you get them, and sometimes you don't. 0:53:01.880 --> 0:53:04.480 Tell us about this seventy two pounder. The start of 0:53:04.480 --> 0:53:05.720 the muskue wars Well. 0:53:06.400 --> 0:53:09.960 Actually this didn't start the Muskue Wars, but it's reignited 0:53:10.040 --> 0:53:10.839 them a little bit. 0:53:11.440 --> 0:53:12.759 Are these these? Are these? 0:53:12.880 --> 0:53:15.120 Is this the crew you told you about the manifesto? 0:53:15.200 --> 0:53:16.680 I've got the manifesto right here? 0:53:16.760 --> 0:53:17.400 How'd you get it? 0:53:20.840 --> 0:53:22.200 Who do you think you're dealing with? 0:53:24.080 --> 0:53:25.560 Okay, let's talk about that. 0:53:25.680 --> 0:53:27.560 Yeah, right here, I'll tell you how I got it. 0:53:28.320 --> 0:53:33.320 Observer number five sent it to me. Oh, after several 0:53:33.360 --> 0:53:37.080 months on the internet talking about it. They didn't know 0:53:37.120 --> 0:53:39.640 anything about it was on the internet. They found out 0:53:40.400 --> 0:53:41.560 and he sent me this. 0:53:41.840 --> 0:53:43.360 But he said, I think he sent it to me. 0:53:44.000 --> 0:53:46.200 Yeah, he sent it to you. And then after he 0:53:46.520 --> 0:53:49.319 after I found out about it and put more about 0:53:49.400 --> 0:53:51.440 it on the internet, then he sent me a copy 0:53:51.719 --> 0:53:53.439 and then I called him the next day. We talked 0:53:53.480 --> 0:53:55.560 for forty minutes and okay. 0:53:55.280 --> 0:53:58.960 Can we refresh people's memory? We were what started this 0:53:59.080 --> 0:54:03.440 whole thing of Larry being here was showed up. We 0:54:03.480 --> 0:54:06.360 got it showed in the mail. Yeah, and you know whatever. 0:54:06.440 --> 0:54:08.440 No that I was like, go through mail on my 0:54:08.560 --> 0:54:12.040 desk and there's this big thing called the Musky Manifesto, 0:54:12.160 --> 0:54:18.080 and it's photographs, documentation, all kinds of stuff and basically 0:54:18.080 --> 0:54:20.600 it's a story about how some guys got boned by 0:54:20.600 --> 0:54:24.480 the ig F A. They caught a giant. Everybody knows 0:54:24.520 --> 0:54:28.120 it was a giant, it was a world record, and 0:54:28.160 --> 0:54:31.320 they got the fish got thrown out on a stupid technicality. 0:54:32.800 --> 0:54:34.800 That's what they claim. 0:54:35.000 --> 0:54:37.960 I'm paraphrasing, but I don't think i'm being I'm. 0:54:37.800 --> 0:54:40.040 Not that that's really the meat of the deal. 0:54:40.360 --> 0:54:41.799 Yeah, that was the meat of the deal. That's what 0:54:41.880 --> 0:54:45.279 hard started this whole conversation, and I started talking about 0:54:45.680 --> 0:54:49.880 my understanding of the muskie community and how they're touchy fellers. 0:54:50.040 --> 0:54:50.840 There's a picture. 0:54:51.000 --> 0:54:52.160 That's the picture I know. 0:54:53.000 --> 0:54:55.000 When it appeared on the internet on a post that 0:54:55.040 --> 0:54:58.960 I have started, somebody sent it in with the heads 0:54:58.960 --> 0:54:59.680 cut off. 0:54:59.520 --> 0:55:02.880 Of the This is what started this conversation is this 0:55:02.920 --> 0:55:07.000 guy saying that they had a seventy two pounder. Everybody 0:55:07.000 --> 0:55:10.160 knows it's a seventy two pounder, but they weighed on 0:55:10.280 --> 0:55:13.040 a boat and IGFA threw it out because you can't 0:55:13.080 --> 0:55:15.840 weigh fish on boats. 0:55:16.520 --> 0:55:19.160 Now, that's not the only rule that they both broke 0:55:19.520 --> 0:55:25.399 for IJFA tell me more the case, the scale must 0:55:25.480 --> 0:55:29.320 be recertified after weighing. They said they had it checked, 0:55:29.320 --> 0:55:31.200 but they didn't tell me how they had it checked 0:55:31.239 --> 0:55:34.919 after after and it was weighing light actually, which means 0:55:34.920 --> 0:55:37.360 a fish weighed seventy three pounds. 0:55:37.400 --> 0:55:41.880 Yeah, he talked, He said that in the manifesto. Turns 0:55:41.880 --> 0:55:42.800 out it's even bigger. 0:55:43.480 --> 0:55:48.080 The Lynx measurement must be done on an IGFA bumpboard 0:55:48.880 --> 0:55:51.360 other words, of a measuring board on a flat surface. 0:55:53.320 --> 0:55:56.280 They didn't have that, so they couldn't comply with that rule. 0:55:57.200 --> 0:55:58.799 You had to have a picture of the rod reel 0:55:58.840 --> 0:56:00.440 and scale and photo of the f show on the 0:56:00.480 --> 0:56:04.440 scale showing the weight. Didn't have that. In fact, the 0:56:04.440 --> 0:56:08.000 guy who wrote the manifesto was one of the five 0:56:08.360 --> 0:56:12.280 the three cousins and two uncles okay, dads of the cousins, 0:56:13.320 --> 0:56:16.360 And supposedly after the guy stood on the seat of 0:56:16.400 --> 0:56:18.279 the boat and lifted the fish up high enough for 0:56:18.320 --> 0:56:20.839 the scale to register, only two of the five guys 0:56:20.880 --> 0:56:24.600 could see the scale reading. This guy that worked the 0:56:24.640 --> 0:56:28.360 manifesto did not see it. So he's he's hanging his 0:56:28.440 --> 0:56:30.319 hat on it. That's the biggest musk he ever caught. 0:56:30.320 --> 0:56:33.600 But he he didn't even see it. Weighed himself as 0:56:33.640 --> 0:56:34.239 far as the. 0:56:34.360 --> 0:56:37.400 Measurement, Oh did you do some phone calls, Larry, pardon 0:56:37.520 --> 0:56:38.759 you did some phone calls about this? 0:56:39.000 --> 0:56:50.879 Yeah, track anything big you do? Yeah, the final fly 0:56:50.960 --> 0:56:55.760 on the ointment and IJFA told me personally that had 0:56:55.800 --> 0:56:59.320 not been weighed in the boat, that there were several 0:56:59.360 --> 0:57:01.640 other things that they would have pursued before they would 0:57:01.760 --> 0:57:05.200 ever recognize it linked measurement. As I told you, it 0:57:05.200 --> 0:57:07.680 has to be done on their bump board. Here's how 0:57:07.719 --> 0:57:09.919 they did it, on the inside of the gunwale of the boat, 0:57:09.920 --> 0:57:12.680 about halfway between the gunnell and the floor. It was 0:57:12.719 --> 0:57:15.279 a fifty inch ruler stuck to the boat. 0:57:15.719 --> 0:57:17.760 Okay, I've been in those boats. 0:57:18.080 --> 0:57:19.000 I got one of my own. 0:57:19.320 --> 0:57:22.120 It took all five of them to hold the fish 0:57:22.200 --> 0:57:25.200 against that tape and then they had a three foot 0:57:25.480 --> 0:57:29.479 bump measurement that they measured the other the distance past 0:57:29.600 --> 0:57:32.680 that tape were one of the guys marked the spot 0:57:32.680 --> 0:57:34.320 and then they measured and they thought it was six 0:57:34.360 --> 0:57:38.200 and a half inches. Well, IJFA would never accept that 0:57:38.280 --> 0:57:43.680 the world came to an end. So I understand that 0:57:43.720 --> 0:57:45.800 he wants his uncle to be a world record holder, 0:57:45.840 --> 0:57:49.280 but it's never going to happen, and it couldn't have 0:57:49.280 --> 0:57:53.000 happened in those circumstances. And here's the kicker, because lack 0:57:53.080 --> 0:57:57.400 SUL is total catching, immediate release, keyword immediate. And the 0:57:57.400 --> 0:58:00.120 conservation officers, I think are a little bit leaning to 0:58:00.320 --> 0:58:03.520 let you take a picture, hu quick one. But had 0:58:03.560 --> 0:58:06.800 the seal came by, well they were monking around like this, 0:58:07.600 --> 0:58:11.160 they would have gotten a fine immediately, you think. So, yeah, 0:58:11.360 --> 0:58:12.400 no question about it. 0:58:12.640 --> 0:58:15.080 So that rules out having a new world record in 0:58:15.160 --> 0:58:17.200 lock school, that's what you said it's going to come 0:58:17.200 --> 0:58:17.440 out of. 0:58:18.000 --> 0:58:19.880 But I know I said it had the potential. 0:58:20.240 --> 0:58:23.440 I have ga out the window. When you look at 0:58:23.440 --> 0:58:24.640 that picture, what do you see? 0:58:25.520 --> 0:58:25.880 Okay? 0:58:26.080 --> 0:58:28.880 Is it like even in the right class of Compare. 0:58:28.680 --> 0:58:29.720 Those two pictures. 0:58:30.120 --> 0:58:31.480 I ain't Larry's jealous. 0:58:33.080 --> 0:58:37.560 Just fish make you jealous, Larry, that one don't because 0:58:37.600 --> 0:58:38.200 I caught it. 0:58:42.240 --> 0:58:44.240 Okay, I see what you're saying here, So I'm supposed to. 0:58:44.600 --> 0:58:48.200 I'm looking at these two fish pretty close and just. 0:58:48.120 --> 0:58:50.480 Going by the Yeah, but you see they look like 0:58:50.520 --> 0:58:52.120 they're pretty close to the same side. 0:58:51.960 --> 0:58:54.240 Because they're both being held up by two people standing 0:58:54.320 --> 0:58:58.000 side by side. Yeah, you I would superficially be like, yeah, 0:58:58.000 --> 0:59:01.200 those are in the ballpark. Rough these same size fishes. 0:59:00.960 --> 0:59:04.400 Okay, my fish was fifty seven and a quarter inches, 0:59:04.840 --> 0:59:09.120 which is slightly longer, and they claimed for their fish, 0:59:09.840 --> 0:59:14.440 we weighed on a certified scale, State certified scale. It 0:59:14.480 --> 0:59:17.400 weighed fifty four pounds four and a half ounces. 0:59:18.880 --> 0:59:22.720 So do I see twenty pounds of blubber on that fish? 0:59:23.040 --> 0:59:25.760 The other fish doesn't have exactly twenty pounds is a 0:59:25.760 --> 0:59:26.680 pile of blobbers. 0:59:26.720 --> 0:59:30.160 And on my thread on muskie first that ran for 0:59:30.240 --> 0:59:33.800 over three months, in fact, it's still up. There was 0:59:33.840 --> 0:59:37.200 not a single person that said it weighed sixty pounds, 0:59:37.280 --> 0:59:40.920 let alone seventy, including Dick Pearson that was referenced to 0:59:40.960 --> 0:59:43.920 a well ago when we were talking. It just is 0:59:44.440 --> 0:59:49.840 it's not there. It's not there. And in the manifest 0:59:49.720 --> 0:59:55.240 a manifesto there's eleven more pictures besides that one, and 0:59:55.320 --> 0:59:59.200 there's several pictures of it in the guy's laps, and 0:59:59.320 --> 1:00:02.040 none of the pictures except one doesn't even have a 1:00:02.080 --> 1:00:05.000 little bit of belly. So there's just no way that 1:00:05.240 --> 1:00:07.800 fish we eight eighteen pounds more than my fish. 1:00:07.880 --> 1:00:09.960 Way, Yeah, you if it had a socker in it. 1:00:10.120 --> 1:00:12.280 Yeah, I mean a couple, it would have had more 1:00:12.320 --> 1:00:14.680 than a It would have had had a ten pound 1:00:15.000 --> 1:00:17.760 whitefish or something in it to. 1:00:17.360 --> 1:00:20.600 Get weight party some lead weights. 1:00:21.600 --> 1:00:24.720 Most people, it sounds like most people out there fishing, 1:00:24.760 --> 1:00:27.080 And maybe I'm wrong about this. I like to fish 1:00:27.480 --> 1:00:29.360 as much as a lot of fellows in this room, 1:00:30.080 --> 1:00:35.720 but that you wouldn't be prepared to officially have a 1:00:36.040 --> 1:00:37.640 record fish in your boat. 1:00:37.480 --> 1:00:40.880 And obviously they weren't. Yeah, and it's a shame and 1:00:41.160 --> 1:00:41.960 one of the things. 1:00:41.800 --> 1:00:43.400 When you go fishing, are you prepared? 1:00:43.800 --> 1:00:48.120 Yes, absolutely, carry my certified scale right in the boat. 1:00:48.280 --> 1:00:49.480 You can't weigh in the boat. 1:00:49.800 --> 1:00:51.560 Well, we can pull right up the shore and get out. 1:00:51.880 --> 1:00:53.080 That's not immediate release. 1:00:53.440 --> 1:01:02.440 But fish and black soul either, Amos Saint Lawrence River. Oh, 1:01:02.560 --> 1:01:05.760 here's the thing. There might be a way you could 1:01:05.800 --> 1:01:08.320 do it on locked soil if they relax that rule 1:01:08.360 --> 1:01:10.160 a little bit and they're working on it. 1:01:10.480 --> 1:01:11.680 Yeah, I could imagine if. 1:01:11.600 --> 1:01:14.400 You pulled the boat to shore, if you had a cradle. 1:01:14.640 --> 1:01:17.280 You know what a cradle is, instead of a dip nut. 1:01:17.960 --> 1:01:20.200 You put the fish in the cradle, You ease the 1:01:20.200 --> 1:01:23.880 boat to shore. Somebody gets out of the boat, lifts 1:01:23.880 --> 1:01:26.040 the scale, lifts the cradle up and hooks it to 1:01:26.080 --> 1:01:29.840 the scale. You should be able to get it above 1:01:29.880 --> 1:01:33.360 the water. If you're on solid. 1:01:33.120 --> 1:01:35.320 Grounds, well it's obviously feasibooks. I mean they're doing it on. 1:01:35.760 --> 1:01:38.000 They'll do it on like great white sharks are an 1:01:38.000 --> 1:01:40.400 e s a species, and they'll get weights off great 1:01:40.400 --> 1:01:42.120 whites and cradles. I mean, there's a way to do 1:01:42.160 --> 1:01:43.960 it right if you got the right expertise. 1:01:44.360 --> 1:01:47.040 So that's the only way that they could have come 1:01:47.200 --> 1:01:50.600 even close to complying with ISJFA rules if they'd been prepared. 1:01:50.600 --> 1:01:52.760 And what I've been trying to beat into people's mind 1:01:52.880 --> 1:01:55.600 is if you have any idea that you want to 1:01:55.640 --> 1:01:57.760 catch the world record muskie, or if you're fishing where 1:01:57.800 --> 1:02:01.919 the potential exists, whichever place that's got muskies it's not there, 1:02:02.720 --> 1:02:06.479 then you should have a copy of the rules, whether 1:02:06.520 --> 1:02:08.760 it's IGFA, whether it's a Fishing Hall of Fame, or 1:02:08.800 --> 1:02:11.200 whether it's a modern day muskie world record program that 1:02:11.240 --> 1:02:15.680 I've started, and have the equipment that you need to 1:02:15.800 --> 1:02:19.800 follow those rules. And here's the kicker that you might like, 1:02:20.480 --> 1:02:23.800 since you're a meat eater, is for my program, it 1:02:23.880 --> 1:02:25.400 has to be a dead fish. They have to keep 1:02:25.440 --> 1:02:30.120 the fish. Why is that Because here's the thing, and 1:02:30.160 --> 1:02:32.160 if you read my book, you'll find what happened in 1:02:32.360 --> 1:02:35.959 the past history is a different wet sand put in fish. 1:02:36.040 --> 1:02:39.960 Coke bottles full of sand in fish to addway, oh. 1:02:39.440 --> 1:02:41.000 Because you want to get a look inside there. 1:02:41.120 --> 1:02:44.640 My program is we have to have a representative at 1:02:44.680 --> 1:02:47.840 the time the fish is opened, and we have to 1:02:47.920 --> 1:02:50.920 check the summit contents. We'll check it for water, we'll 1:02:51.000 --> 1:02:54.040 check it for bait, fish, we'll check it for sand 1:02:54.040 --> 1:02:54.439 and rocks. 1:02:54.720 --> 1:02:54.919 Fish. 1:02:55.080 --> 1:02:58.560 Fine, yeah, if they weren't stuffed in there by the angler, 1:02:59.800 --> 1:03:02.320 that's a that's gonna be a tough call if it 1:03:02.320 --> 1:03:06.520 ever happens. But depending on the size of the forage, 1:03:06.720 --> 1:03:08.840 you should be able to tell whether the musky grabbed 1:03:08.880 --> 1:03:10.120 the fish or whether it didn't. 1:03:10.600 --> 1:03:11.720 Something fish is going on. 1:03:12.920 --> 1:03:18.920 So you like that cow and people fitticizes some for saying, 1:03:19.560 --> 1:03:21.880 you know, we have to kill the fish, but that's 1:03:21.920 --> 1:03:23.080 one fish out of zillion. 1:03:23.120 --> 1:03:24.400 Yeah, how often is that gonna happen? 1:03:25.440 --> 1:03:26.520 The last big musky? 1:03:27.400 --> 1:03:31.000 Educate your anglers and say you're gonna kill this fish 1:03:31.000 --> 1:03:33.040 because you're positive it's a new record. 1:03:33.280 --> 1:03:35.360 Well right, and if you're smart, you got to scale 1:03:35.400 --> 1:03:37.240 on the boat to find out before you kill it. 1:03:37.720 --> 1:03:38.760 Yeah, yeah, there you go. 1:03:39.080 --> 1:03:41.280 Yeah, and I've got. 1:03:40.560 --> 1:03:42.360 What you're saying. So this should be like a once 1:03:42.400 --> 1:03:46.600 in a once in a generation activity, right. 1:03:46.960 --> 1:03:49.919 I mean, I've got some pictures here of I won't 1:03:49.960 --> 1:03:52.280 take them out, but uh, there's been a couple of 1:03:52.280 --> 1:03:54.160 really big fish caught out of the Saint Lawrence River 1:03:54.160 --> 1:03:56.480 in the last couple of years, and they had scales 1:03:56.520 --> 1:03:59.760 on the boat, They had lots of witnesses. Yes, they 1:03:59.800 --> 1:04:01.960 weigh on the boat, but they weren't going for a 1:04:02.000 --> 1:04:04.240 record anyway, so they just wondered how big it was. 1:04:04.400 --> 1:04:06.200 It was almost sixty pounds. 1:04:06.520 --> 1:04:08.720 What I'm getting worried about here is I want to 1:04:08.720 --> 1:04:11.000 make sure we talk that you explain what the muskie 1:04:11.040 --> 1:04:14.680 wars were. But when you when you call a person 1:04:14.720 --> 1:04:17.959 up when you're investigating a fish, well, how many fish 1:04:17.960 --> 1:04:19.440 have you investigated in your career? 1:04:19.880 --> 1:04:20.439 Quite a few? 1:04:21.320 --> 1:04:23.200 I mean have you do? You have you made your 1:04:23.240 --> 1:04:26.200 living writing and fishing and guiding. 1:04:25.960 --> 1:04:29.240 Pretty not not completely, but a good portion of it. 1:04:29.280 --> 1:04:31.080 So yet yet points you've had a day job. 1:04:31.200 --> 1:04:31.520 Yeah? 1:04:31.640 --> 1:04:32.680 Yeah, what line of words. 1:04:33.040 --> 1:04:35.720 For instance, our modern day muski modern day muskie world 1:04:35.760 --> 1:04:39.040 record is fifty eight pounds. That's the modern record. Okay, 1:04:39.680 --> 1:04:42.560 it was Cotton, Michigan, who was putt in a frazer 1:04:43.560 --> 1:04:47.000 that was in the bell Air chain, the Torch River chain. 1:04:47.080 --> 1:04:50.560 Oh yep, okay, and uh you took it to a 1:04:50.600 --> 1:04:54.000 tax germist. One of our committee members went to the 1:04:54.040 --> 1:04:58.440 tax deermists, remeasured to fish, rewighed the fish, and then 1:04:58.840 --> 1:05:00.800 was stayed in the fraser for four four months, and 1:05:00.840 --> 1:05:04.439 they shipped it to Minnesota to have a replica, made 1:05:04.800 --> 1:05:07.840 a mold for a replica, and so I made a 1:05:07.920 --> 1:05:10.680 rainments to be there when they got the fish they 1:05:10.720 --> 1:05:13.120 thawed to fish out. I was there when it was opened. 1:05:13.200 --> 1:05:16.560 I reweighed first to make sure it weighs close to 1:05:16.600 --> 1:05:18.760 what it was claimed to be in It was actually 1:05:18.760 --> 1:05:21.720 over because it absorbed a little bit of the water 1:05:21.760 --> 1:05:28.840 from thawing overnight. But so then I weighed the fish again. 1:05:29.520 --> 1:05:32.840 It was okay. And then when they opened the stomach 1:05:32.840 --> 1:05:34.680 it had. All it had was a skeleton of a 1:05:34.720 --> 1:05:39.440 thirteen inch small mouth. They had almost completely gone and 1:05:40.000 --> 1:05:41.120 obsousally no weight there. 1:05:41.360 --> 1:05:43.440 He had a keeper small mouth and. 1:05:43.360 --> 1:05:46.360 At two and a third pounds of eggs is all 1:05:46.400 --> 1:05:49.600 it had in it. So it had just started getting eggs. 1:05:49.720 --> 1:05:53.120 Got it for the fall, and this was in October, 1:05:53.200 --> 1:05:56.880 so it was it was not starting real early, probably 1:05:57.000 --> 1:06:00.320 into December before they really start building up eggs. Do 1:06:00.360 --> 1:06:01.080 it through the winner, and. 1:06:01.440 --> 1:06:03.400 You got to personally handle the world. 1:06:03.280 --> 1:06:05.600 Record, the modern day record. 1:06:05.960 --> 1:06:08.600 Uh, how many fish have you investigated? 1:06:10.960 --> 1:06:13.960 Oh, not a lot, because there's not been a lot 1:06:14.040 --> 1:06:19.280 of records caught. But I've investigated other fish then, you know, 1:06:19.440 --> 1:06:21.000 just just a modern day record. 1:06:21.000 --> 1:06:23.880 But when you invested, like I would say, you investigated 1:06:23.880 --> 1:06:25.640 this fish, the Musky Manifest. 1:06:26.040 --> 1:06:29.080 My investigation the world records took up the whole book. 1:06:29.800 --> 1:06:33.720 That's that's all just world records right there, And that 1:06:33.840 --> 1:06:36.880 whole thing is about the past world records. 1:06:36.480 --> 1:06:41.720 A compendion of musky angling history, muscle lunge, World Records, 1:06:41.760 --> 1:06:46.920 the History, the Truth, the Truth eighteen seventy seventy, two 1:06:46.960 --> 1:06:47.640 thousand and six. 1:06:47.920 --> 1:06:50.960 Right, But you've investigated far more fish than that, because 1:06:50.960 --> 1:06:53.120 you obviously debunked a few along the way. 1:06:53.200 --> 1:06:54.680 Right, But he puts them in there, don't you. 1:06:54.920 --> 1:06:56.320 Yeah, they're in all. Yeah. 1:06:56.720 --> 1:06:58.960 Dot Adversary and that books. 1:06:58.680 --> 1:07:01.160 Available on Amazon, by the way, and also Kindle if 1:07:01.160 --> 1:07:03.560 you just want to get it on your iPod, got it? 1:07:04.320 --> 1:07:05.480 Does it get adversarial? 1:07:07.320 --> 1:07:09.720 It can bet it didn't because I've not. 1:07:10.080 --> 1:07:12.919 With this kid. Were you guys getting We've got along fine. 1:07:12.920 --> 1:07:16.000 We had a nice conversation. I understood where he was 1:07:16.040 --> 1:07:18.080 coming from. He was thrilled to death for his uncle 1:07:18.080 --> 1:07:20.720 to catch the fish. Yep, and they all thought they 1:07:20.760 --> 1:07:25.760 had a world record. But from what I understand is 1:07:25.760 --> 1:07:28.720 what I was told, not from this kid, but from 1:07:29.080 --> 1:07:32.919 the resort people or people associated with the resort people. 1:07:32.960 --> 1:07:36.640 The scale they used was a twenty dollars Amazon scale. 1:07:37.600 --> 1:07:41.240 Can't be real repeatable. That's what you need for a 1:07:41.280 --> 1:07:44.640 good scale. It's got to be repeatable. So who knows. 1:07:45.280 --> 1:07:48.560 Maybe because he jumped up on the seat and tried 1:07:48.600 --> 1:07:50.240 to get the fish up, it took him two lifts 1:07:50.280 --> 1:07:52.600 to get a tail off the ground or off the 1:07:52.640 --> 1:07:54.960 floor of the boat, and so it had to be 1:07:55.080 --> 1:07:57.480 You know, you're standing there with all that weight supposedly 1:07:57.520 --> 1:08:00.480 seventy two pounds. I mean he lifted weights a little bit, 1:08:00.520 --> 1:08:04.240 but try it sometime. It's not easy to lift forty pounds. 1:08:04.280 --> 1:08:08.360 It'll oone seventy. So whether the scale jiggled or whether 1:08:08.400 --> 1:08:13.040 the boat rocked, who knows what. Nobody believes it weighed 1:08:13.040 --> 1:08:15.560 seventy two pounds. If they want to believe it. That's fine. 1:08:15.560 --> 1:08:18.120 More power to them that. If that's what they want, 1:08:18.120 --> 1:08:21.760 that to be their family goal, go for it. But 1:08:22.320 --> 1:08:23.120 I'm not buying it. 1:08:24.360 --> 1:08:25.360 I ain't going in the butt. 1:08:27.040 --> 1:08:32.880 I probably won't do any more revisions, getting too old. 1:08:32.120 --> 1:08:34.240 Okay, tell me about what the why was the muskie? 1:08:34.240 --> 1:08:36.400 Why did the Muskie War start the year I finished 1:08:36.439 --> 1:08:38.240 high school? And is there a correlation? 1:08:40.560 --> 1:08:44.800 I never thought about that? Okay? In nineteen ninety. 1:08:44.560 --> 1:08:46.479 One, Oh sorry, I finished ninety three. 1:08:46.560 --> 1:08:51.640 John Delloff, who's a amateur historian in my hometown or 1:08:51.840 --> 1:08:53.360 where I live now, Hayward. 1:08:53.080 --> 1:08:56.240 Was called a muskie historian or historian pretty much. 1:08:56.400 --> 1:08:59.000 He's a historian, but heavy into musky. 1:08:59.240 --> 1:09:00.479 Okay. 1:09:01.200 --> 1:09:04.160 Well, he decided that he was going to investigate it, 1:09:05.160 --> 1:09:09.679 and so he used his amateur photo analysis to try 1:09:09.720 --> 1:09:14.280 to debunk Arthur Lawton's sixty nine pounds fifteen ounce muskie 1:09:14.320 --> 1:09:17.200 from the Saint Lee Trevor six sixty nine to fifteen 1:09:17.320 --> 1:09:21.519 from say One Trevor, nineteen fifty seven. The thing of 1:09:21.560 --> 1:09:24.599 it is, it could have all stopped right there, had 1:09:25.320 --> 1:09:26.960 if I had had my head on straight, or if 1:09:27.000 --> 1:09:30.280 anybody else would have thought about it. The pictures that 1:09:30.360 --> 1:09:34.240 he used to analyze. Okay, there is no way to 1:09:34.439 --> 1:09:38.880 prove that the scales that Field and Stream are, the 1:09:39.200 --> 1:09:44.959 pictures that Field and Stream published were the actual pictures 1:09:44.960 --> 1:09:50.080 of the fish. Igfa's reason for setting the record aside, 1:09:50.120 --> 1:09:56.519 and they never did do a complete disqualification. It's still 1:09:56.560 --> 1:10:01.920 instead aside status. But at that time in fifty seven, 1:10:01.960 --> 1:10:08.040 Field Stream did not require a photograph even but IGFA did, 1:10:08.080 --> 1:10:10.760 so they weren't sure that the pictures that they had 1:10:10.800 --> 1:10:12.880 were the right face, so they put it in set 1:10:12.880 --> 1:10:16.080 aside status until another picture could be found. Well, I'd 1:10:16.080 --> 1:10:18.600 found it and produced it and had a meeting with 1:10:18.680 --> 1:10:21.559 him in two thousand and seven, but they still rejected it. 1:10:22.200 --> 1:10:27.120 But that was all boloney because when the World Record 1:10:27.160 --> 1:10:33.439 Musky Alliance challenged Cal Johnson's nineteen fifty seven or nineteen 1:10:33.479 --> 1:10:39.599 forty nine sixty seven pounder, lost my chain of thought. 1:10:40.880 --> 1:10:43.959 You were talking about you were talking about the amateur historian. 1:10:44.680 --> 1:10:48.120 Okay, we're off of him for a minute. Yep, the WRIM, 1:10:48.320 --> 1:10:51.599 which is a world record Musky Alliance. They were trying 1:10:51.640 --> 1:10:55.040 to prove which world record muskies were indeed legitimate. 1:10:55.080 --> 1:10:57.200 Yeap, which these guys actually had it right. 1:10:57.040 --> 1:11:01.639 And so they had a professional photograph interest. Now analyze 1:11:01.680 --> 1:11:04.840 the photographs as the same thing they did for spraysfish, 1:11:05.000 --> 1:11:08.679 which was sixty nine to eleven, the one that Latin 1:11:08.720 --> 1:11:17.479 beat and when they denied the Wrimes protest and also 1:11:18.200 --> 1:11:23.160 Louis Spray's protests for the hull. Anyway, IJFA said that 1:11:23.560 --> 1:11:26.080 they decided that you can't prove the weight of a 1:11:26.120 --> 1:11:29.400 fish from a two dimensional photograph, which I agree with. 1:11:30.320 --> 1:11:34.200 But what you can prove from photogrammetry is, for instance, 1:11:34.200 --> 1:11:37.280 in the case of the Johnson fish, it was actually 1:11:37.320 --> 1:11:41.679 twenty five percent smaller than what they claimed by photo 1:11:41.760 --> 1:11:45.120 analysis of both the fresh fish and the mount after 1:11:45.160 --> 1:11:50.080 it was mounted. If you'll overlay the outline of both 1:11:50.120 --> 1:11:52.559 the mounted fish and the fresh fish is the same 1:11:52.560 --> 1:11:55.200 thing they did with sprayfish. One is way shorter than 1:11:55.200 --> 1:11:58.360 the other one ten inches in Spray's case, maybe more 1:11:58.400 --> 1:12:01.599 than that and seven and a half in Johnson's fish. 1:12:01.960 --> 1:12:03.760 And if you come to Hayward, I'll buy you you 1:12:03.760 --> 1:12:05.600 can buy me a beer. I'll take you to the 1:12:05.600 --> 1:12:07.720 mox and Bar and show you Johnson's Mountain. I'll show 1:12:07.720 --> 1:12:13.120 you exactly how they did it. I've had quite a 1:12:13.160 --> 1:12:14.760 few beers over that fire. 1:12:17.240 --> 1:12:17.800 At what bar? 1:12:18.600 --> 1:12:20.960 Mox and bar hanging the mox and bar in the 1:12:20.960 --> 1:12:22.880 glass case? Still there now, still there now? 1:12:23.400 --> 1:12:25.120 And uh and what's it say underneath it? 1:12:25.840 --> 1:12:30.160 Well, Cal Johnson's world record muskie because they didn't want 1:12:30.200 --> 1:12:33.640 to claim world record musky because supposedly Spray's face beat it. 1:12:33.680 --> 1:12:38.559 But Spray's face was a lie anyway, So anyway, that's 1:12:38.640 --> 1:12:39.320 that's that. 1:12:39.280 --> 1:12:41.200 It was a lie or a mistake. 1:12:41.560 --> 1:12:44.800 It was a lie. Lily the liar I call him. 1:12:46.160 --> 1:12:47.720 Does he have a history of line. 1:12:48.920 --> 1:12:51.719 It started in nineteen thirty nine, because he's still alive. 1:12:51.880 --> 1:12:56.200 Everything was pretty kosher up till nineteen thirty nine. Lake 1:12:56.240 --> 1:12:58.519 of the Woods in nineteen twenty nine, nineteen thirty one, 1:12:58.640 --> 1:13:03.000 nineteen thirty two produced world record muskies. The biggest one 1:13:03.040 --> 1:13:05.799 of all of them was fifty eight pounds and four ounces. 1:13:05.880 --> 1:13:07.000 That was nineteen thirty two. 1:13:07.080 --> 1:13:09.880 And this is like the heyday, right heyday of. 1:13:09.920 --> 1:13:12.439 Lake of the Woods. But it's still to this day 1:13:12.479 --> 1:13:17.400 never produced a sixty pound fish. So in nineteen thirty nine, 1:13:20.040 --> 1:13:22.519 there was a gentleman named Percy have in Detroit, Michigan, 1:13:23.280 --> 1:13:27.120 making lures and wanting to become a big deal. So 1:13:27.160 --> 1:13:29.600 he supposedly caught a world record. 1:13:29.760 --> 1:13:31.040 He wants to play the game. 1:13:30.960 --> 1:13:34.120 And that was in June. Well, in July, Lewis Spray 1:13:35.320 --> 1:13:38.640 came up with one just a little bit bigger, and 1:13:38.680 --> 1:13:41.280 so he had the world record. But before the year 1:13:41.400 --> 1:13:43.960 was out, a guy who had never fished muskus before 1:13:44.000 --> 1:13:46.559 and borrowed a rod and reel, skipped work and went 1:13:46.600 --> 1:13:48.559 fishing with his buddies on Eagle Lake. By noon the 1:13:48.560 --> 1:13:53.519 first day had a sixty pound, eight ounce legitimate fish. Legit, legit. 1:13:54.479 --> 1:13:58.040 In fact, John delle office has not challenged that fish 1:13:58.520 --> 1:14:03.720 to this day. Oh anyway, that was nineteen thirty nine. Well, 1:14:03.760 --> 1:14:06.040 Spray wasn't happy about having the record for just a 1:14:06.080 --> 1:14:08.880 short period of time. And I think the reason that 1:14:08.960 --> 1:14:11.720 he did it in the first place was coming out 1:14:11.720 --> 1:14:14.799 of the depression, the war's getting ready to go crazy, 1:14:15.520 --> 1:14:17.599 and tourism was at a low ebb and he owned 1:14:17.600 --> 1:14:20.920 a tavern. So what better way to get business than 1:14:20.920 --> 1:14:25.200 a world record muskie. Yeah, but yeah, when he got 1:14:25.240 --> 1:14:27.240 the first one, he put it on Ice s Indey's bar, 1:14:27.800 --> 1:14:30.120 had everybody write in a book what they guessed that 1:14:30.200 --> 1:14:33.200 it weighed before they ever told it. And excuse me, anybody, 1:14:33.280 --> 1:14:39.840 how much it weighed, and then in nineteen forty he 1:14:39.960 --> 1:14:43.760 decided to do it again, but Haybard already beat him 1:14:43.960 --> 1:14:46.800 with a bigger one in nineteen forty, So this is 1:14:46.840 --> 1:14:49.120 two years in row Har's got a world record and 1:14:49.120 --> 1:14:51.280 two years in a row. Sprays thought he had a 1:14:51.280 --> 1:14:53.320 world record, but he was already beat before it was caught. 1:14:53.720 --> 1:14:56.760 But yet he still claimed on his even on his 1:14:56.880 --> 1:15:01.639 tombstone today he relies, this remains of Lewis right, three 1:15:01.680 --> 1:15:07.599 world record muskies in his day. So he had the Hayward, 1:15:07.640 --> 1:15:08.720 Wisconsin graveyard. 1:15:09.160 --> 1:15:10.240 Is that a picture in your book? 1:15:10.840 --> 1:15:12.960 I don't have a picture of the tombstone, but it's 1:15:13.360 --> 1:15:16.160 in Chester's going to get one. It's in a book. 1:15:16.479 --> 1:15:18.360 So it was all said and done. That's what he 1:15:18.439 --> 1:15:23.000 wanted on there, right, not like loving father right right. 1:15:23.040 --> 1:15:27.720 So three times and that was that was his supposed 1:15:27.800 --> 1:15:30.320 second world record, but it wasn't. And then that same 1:15:30.400 --> 1:15:33.240 year another eagle, a fish big fish was caught sixty 1:15:33.240 --> 1:15:36.120 one pounds nine ounces, but it had already been beaten twice. 1:15:36.880 --> 1:15:40.599 So there was six record potential fish caught in two years, 1:15:41.160 --> 1:15:45.160 and four of them by the two guys with two each. 1:15:46.640 --> 1:15:51.439 So things went quiet for a while Louis moved out 1:15:51.439 --> 1:15:53.559 of Hayward, he sold his tavern. He moved to Rice 1:15:53.640 --> 1:15:56.840 Lake and bought another tavern. Kind of got out of 1:15:56.840 --> 1:16:01.679 the muskie game. And nineteen forty seven of sixty four 1:16:01.680 --> 1:16:04.480 and a half pound fish was caught in Vadas County, Wisconsin, 1:16:05.080 --> 1:16:07.400 and of course right away the rumors start and the game. 1:16:07.520 --> 1:16:10.160 Orden said he had a pen fattening it up, and 1:16:10.360 --> 1:16:12.200 you know the usual. 1:16:11.960 --> 1:16:15.040 Rumors, throwing kittens in a little baby pool. 1:16:15.760 --> 1:16:17.599 Yeah, yeah, So. 1:16:19.200 --> 1:16:19.679 That off. 1:16:20.600 --> 1:16:23.479 He was trying to disprove every big musky that was caught, 1:16:23.479 --> 1:16:26.080 except those were caught in Hayward, with the exception of 1:16:26.080 --> 1:16:27.479 the eagle leg fish, and I don't know why he 1:16:27.520 --> 1:16:30.360 skipped those two. So anyway, he tried to discredit the 1:16:30.360 --> 1:16:33.280 hands for fishing, and he never did dispute the fact 1:16:33.320 --> 1:16:36.640 that it was fifty eight inches long. But when the 1:16:36.640 --> 1:16:38.719 picture was taken of hands or hole in the fish, 1:16:38.760 --> 1:16:41.759 he had already gutted the fish and taken twelve pounds 1:16:41.760 --> 1:16:44.600 of spawn out of it, so it looked like it, 1:16:44.920 --> 1:16:48.639 you know, a tube that was fifty eight inches long, 1:16:48.680 --> 1:16:51.000 and it couldn't possibly weighed sixty four a half pounds, 1:16:51.000 --> 1:16:53.439 But he had certified scale, he had all the affiday 1:16:53.479 --> 1:16:57.080 it's necessary and everything. So it kind of died down. Then. 1:16:57.360 --> 1:16:59.680 Can I tell you something. I signed up for a 1:16:59.720 --> 1:17:04.360 turk you derby one time and Elroy Wisconsin at the bar, 1:17:05.800 --> 1:17:07.519 and I got it my turkey and brought it down 1:17:07.520 --> 1:17:11.519 there and everybody had a big laugh about how I 1:17:11.560 --> 1:17:14.160 got it. The next day we stopped back down there 1:17:14.200 --> 1:17:15.800 and we come in. They're still in there. 1:17:16.000 --> 1:17:20.479 He got it, he got it? 1:17:21.439 --> 1:17:22.040 What did go by? 1:17:22.120 --> 1:17:22.240 Way? 1:17:23.680 --> 1:17:25.360 What kind of idiot. 1:17:26.520 --> 1:17:27.840 Cost yourself there? Did you? 1:17:29.000 --> 1:17:29.080 So? 1:17:29.120 --> 1:17:35.679 Anyway? Nineteen forty nine, Cal Johnson caught a supposed sixty 1:17:35.720 --> 1:17:38.439 seven and a half pounder. Nice, I'd like you to 1:17:38.479 --> 1:17:43.679 do a little photo analysis, if you would. There's three 1:17:43.760 --> 1:17:46.839 pictures of his supposed sixty seven and a half pounder 1:17:47.360 --> 1:17:53.439 and one picture of a forty four pounder and they 1:17:53.439 --> 1:17:54.519 don't look much different. 1:17:56.040 --> 1:17:58.719 And well, bottom right is a real stut. 1:17:59.640 --> 1:18:02.120 We think before we would start this, don't you think 1:18:02.120 --> 1:18:04.639 we would say, mister Ranella, we'd like you to perform 1:18:04.680 --> 1:18:07.040 a photo analysis for the group. But before you do that, 1:18:07.040 --> 1:18:10.840 could you please tell us your background, Like how are 1:18:10.880 --> 1:18:12.879 you qualified to judge these photos? 1:18:13.160 --> 1:18:13.840 Uh? 1:18:14.160 --> 1:18:14.840 Just eyeballing? 1:18:15.240 --> 1:18:21.120 I have caught a tiger musky. Wow, and many, many, 1:18:21.200 --> 1:18:27.320 many twenty four twenty two inch northerns. Yeah, and uh, 1:18:27.439 --> 1:18:30.040 these are all whoppers. 1:18:30.640 --> 1:18:31.640 Well one of the things that was. 1:18:31.920 --> 1:18:35.240 But I gotta say this in all seriousness, I'm not, 1:18:35.280 --> 1:18:39.240 as you know, not a seasoned muskie fisherman. I mean, 1:18:39.960 --> 1:18:42.479 maybe you can help explain it, but come on, how 1:18:42.520 --> 1:18:44.320 much can you What can you tell from any of 1:18:44.360 --> 1:18:45.000 these photos? 1:18:47.680 --> 1:18:50.760 Not a lot actually, unless they unless they're done professionally 1:18:50.760 --> 1:18:54.840 by a photograph intrist. But the thing that struck me 1:18:55.000 --> 1:18:57.640 was I bought this magazine at a flea market and 1:18:57.720 --> 1:19:01.479 it was written Cal Johnson article written the year before 1:19:02.000 --> 1:19:04.760 he got his record out of same lake where he 1:19:04.760 --> 1:19:08.920 supposedly got his record, and that that's the picture right there. 1:19:09.720 --> 1:19:13.160 And strangely, and a year later he catches a fish 1:19:13.240 --> 1:19:16.160 that looks a lot like that fish. He claims it 1:19:16.200 --> 1:19:18.160 to weigh sixty seven and a half pounds and claims 1:19:18.160 --> 1:19:21.760 a new world record and won an automobile. What so, 1:19:22.560 --> 1:19:25.240 this may be totally legitimate, This may be you know, 1:19:25.320 --> 1:19:27.719 it may not be that fish. It may be that fish. 1:19:27.840 --> 1:19:31.639 I don't know, I don't really care. But here's how 1:19:31.720 --> 1:19:36.040 wax record keeping was even then nineteen forty nine. This 1:19:36.200 --> 1:19:38.519 is a letter from Field and Stream, who were the 1:19:38.520 --> 1:19:40.080 world record keepers at the time. 1:19:40.280 --> 1:19:42.160 Now at that point in time was Field and Stream. 1:19:42.160 --> 1:19:44.320 Field and Stream, because they've sold off the rights of 1:19:44.360 --> 1:19:46.160 that name and all kinds. Yeah, they were, they were, 1:19:46.200 --> 1:19:50.240 So it was affiliate with the magazine back then, right, Yeah. 1:19:49.320 --> 1:19:53.919 So letter to Cal Johnson. We recently received a clipping 1:19:54.040 --> 1:19:56.719 covering your sixty seven and a half pound musculin's catch. 1:19:56.960 --> 1:20:00.000 Congratulations on a fine catch and setting a new world record. 1:20:00.800 --> 1:20:03.400 We'd like very much to have an entry from you 1:20:03.479 --> 1:20:07.080 in our annual fishing contest, and an entry blank is 1:20:07.200 --> 1:20:12.080 enclosed herewith for that program they actually chased the record, okay. 1:20:13.520 --> 1:20:17.440 Also in the case of the world records, if possible, 1:20:17.600 --> 1:20:22.440 If possible, we would like to have an affidavit attesting 1:20:22.479 --> 1:20:24.920 to the accuracy of the scales on which the fish 1:20:25.040 --> 1:20:28.479 was weighed. To this day, there's never been any proof 1:20:28.479 --> 1:20:31.160 the scales were certified, and it was weighed on two 1:20:31.160 --> 1:20:35.320 different scales, as well as two or three additional witnesses 1:20:35.640 --> 1:20:38.240 to the weighing and measuring. This is not because we 1:20:38.360 --> 1:20:41.639 have any doubt as to the weight, but merely serves 1:20:41.680 --> 1:20:44.519 as a protection to both ourselves and to the angler. 1:20:46.040 --> 1:20:48.639 If you have one or two good pictures to spare, 1:20:48.840 --> 1:20:53.920 we would appreciate receiving those also. That's how lacks World 1:20:53.960 --> 1:20:57.320 Records certification was in those days. Yep. 1:20:57.840 --> 1:21:01.599 So when you go into looking at a fish, when 1:21:01.640 --> 1:21:06.040 you go into investigating a fish, are you hoping? And 1:21:06.080 --> 1:21:08.760 you gotta be honest? Okay, I'm trying. I want to 1:21:08.800 --> 1:21:11.360 tap into your deepest, most honest thought. 1:21:11.720 --> 1:21:12.479 I'm ready for you. 1:21:13.760 --> 1:21:15.639 Are you hoping it's a phony? Or are you hoping 1:21:15.680 --> 1:21:16.719 it's a new world record. 1:21:16.720 --> 1:21:19.160 I'm glad you asked that question. When I wrote the 1:21:19.160 --> 1:21:23.840 first edition on the Compendium nineteen eighty one, I did 1:21:23.960 --> 1:21:28.520 everything I could to prove that the records were legitimate. 1:21:29.080 --> 1:21:31.720 I did not go looking for any negatives got it. 1:21:31.800 --> 1:21:33.719 If one would have popped up, I uld have jumped 1:21:33.720 --> 1:21:37.120 all over it. But my goal was to record history. 1:21:37.160 --> 1:21:41.080 That was it, and so I was trying to find 1:21:41.160 --> 1:21:44.280 every bit of information I could that would substantiate the fish. 1:21:44.560 --> 1:21:44.960 Got it. 1:21:45.479 --> 1:21:48.000 That was in nineteen eighty one. Nineteen ninety seven, I 1:21:48.040 --> 1:21:51.120 did an update, kind of screwed it up a little bit, 1:21:51.160 --> 1:21:54.400 but I was back on the track of these fish 1:21:54.400 --> 1:21:57.400 were bogus and then I did this third edition in 1:21:57.400 --> 1:22:04.200 two thousand and seven, and uh, that's a very very 1:22:04.240 --> 1:22:07.599 hard read volume one, because it gets so much into 1:22:07.640 --> 1:22:11.080 depth and of how we determined this, and how we 1:22:11.240 --> 1:22:15.800 determine that, and what have you. But UH, when when 1:22:15.880 --> 1:22:22.840 dell Off first made his proposals to get Lawton's fish disqualified, 1:22:23.600 --> 1:22:26.559 I was working a lot of hours as traveling, I 1:22:26.600 --> 1:22:28.600 was moving from one town to another, and so I 1:22:28.600 --> 1:22:30.640 didn't really scrutinize it like I should have, And I 1:22:30.720 --> 1:22:33.880 regret that ever since. In fact, it keeps me awake nights. 1:22:34.439 --> 1:22:37.160 But because you wish what would have happened. 1:22:37.320 --> 1:22:39.240 I wish I would have looked at it closer, because 1:22:39.720 --> 1:22:43.000 as you will see if you read this, I've spent 1:22:43.160 --> 1:22:50.400 probably a fifth of that book debunking his protest, his. 1:22:49.680 --> 1:22:52.680 His like he wasn't being fair. 1:22:52.560 --> 1:22:58.240 Right, and he proved that out on his own self. 1:22:58.439 --> 1:23:04.759 By Uh, when the Wrima protested the sprayfish, the sixty 1:23:04.840 --> 1:23:09.720 nine to eleven fish that replaced the sixty nineteen fifteen blottonfish, 1:23:11.320 --> 1:23:13.680 he I was at that time. I was on the 1:23:13.720 --> 1:23:19.559 hall board, I was the world record advisor, and WA 1:23:19.680 --> 1:23:22.040 made the protest. It was a ninety some page this 1:23:22.160 --> 1:23:26.520 big black notebook here of all the things that they found, 1:23:27.160 --> 1:23:28.320 louis a no good son. 1:23:28.200 --> 1:23:30.200 Of a bitch and a ninety page takedown. 1:23:33.040 --> 1:23:34.920 They would not allow me to sit in on the 1:23:34.960 --> 1:23:38.719 meeting to review this protest, even though I'm the world 1:23:38.720 --> 1:23:41.000 record advisor for the Hall and I built that program 1:23:41.040 --> 1:23:44.200 from scratch. So I asked John Dellof, who at the 1:23:44.200 --> 1:23:46.600 time was the director of the Hall of Fame, for 1:23:46.760 --> 1:23:50.719 the president president of the Board. I says, why can't 1:23:50.720 --> 1:23:52.840 I sit in on this meeting? He says, because that's 1:23:52.840 --> 1:23:55.960 the way I want it, because he knew if I 1:23:56.080 --> 1:23:58.320 was there he couldn't control the narrative. 1:23:58.800 --> 1:23:59.000 Yep. 1:24:00.000 --> 1:24:03.240 In fact, he allowed me fifteen minutes to make a 1:24:03.280 --> 1:24:06.200 presentation of the board and that was it. And they 1:24:06.240 --> 1:24:08.559 had blow ups of the affidavits as big as that 1:24:08.720 --> 1:24:11.360 plane picture behind you there as well. One of the 1:24:11.400 --> 1:24:14.080 board members asked me, he says, how can you contest 1:24:14.120 --> 1:24:17.479 these affai Davids, I said, ask that gentleman there, because 1:24:18.000 --> 1:24:25.680 Lawton had five legitimate affidavids to the weight of his fish. 1:24:26.200 --> 1:24:31.120 And when Detlof did his protest and they disqualified it, 1:24:32.760 --> 1:24:35.719 four of those witnesses came forward and re signed another 1:24:35.800 --> 1:24:39.160 alpha David the fish was legitimate, and he found three 1:24:39.240 --> 1:24:43.480 new witnesses. Three new witnesses found two of them made affidavids, 1:24:43.479 --> 1:24:45.759 and one of them was the next door neighbor to Lawtons, 1:24:45.760 --> 1:24:49.600 and he verified Detloff made up his own Affidavid for 1:24:49.640 --> 1:24:52.720 the kid to sign, so he didn't really understand what 1:24:52.800 --> 1:24:55.240 he was signing. But what he did say in there 1:24:55.479 --> 1:25:00.679 was that on subsequent weekends that Lawton's brought home one 1:25:00.720 --> 1:25:03.960 weekend nine big fish, the biggest one was forty nine pounds, 1:25:04.520 --> 1:25:06.519 and the next week ends when he got the sixty 1:25:06.600 --> 1:25:11.240 nine to fifteen, and he was witnessed to both of them, 1:25:11.280 --> 1:25:14.720 where Deloff was trying to say that because the photographs 1:25:14.720 --> 1:25:17.160 that appeared in Field and Stream were of the forty 1:25:17.240 --> 1:25:21.080 nine pounder, that that's the one Lawton was claiming to 1:25:21.120 --> 1:25:22.920 be the sixty nine pounder yep. 1:25:23.680 --> 1:25:23.960 And so. 1:25:25.400 --> 1:25:31.200 Then IGFA, after the wim protests, said that you can't 1:25:31.240 --> 1:25:33.760 tell from a two dimensional photograph the weight of a 1:25:33.800 --> 1:25:38.120 fish you but Mike come back to them was but 1:25:38.240 --> 1:25:41.479 you can tell if it was phonied up enough, because 1:25:41.520 --> 1:25:45.040 the photographmetry proves that it was twenty five percent smaller 1:25:45.080 --> 1:25:49.200 than it actually claimed to be and plus you got 1:25:49.240 --> 1:25:52.639 the witnesses, the weight witness and he said the president, 1:25:52.640 --> 1:25:57.680 the current president of the IJFA, said that IGFA recognizes 1:25:57.720 --> 1:26:04.479 all tackle records by scale weight only period. Well, we 1:26:04.560 --> 1:26:08.240 had what ten alfi, David's or so of Lawton's fish, 1:26:08.520 --> 1:26:11.360 and they won't reinstate it. I want to know why 1:26:11.920 --> 1:26:17.240 they won't answer me. But if if it's by witnessed 1:26:17.280 --> 1:26:19.479 weight on a certified scale, which it. 1:26:19.479 --> 1:26:20.519 Was, what's the argument. 1:26:22.600 --> 1:26:25.320 They won't tell me. They won't talk to me. They'll 1:26:25.320 --> 1:26:27.439 talk The other guys will talk to me. The record 1:26:27.520 --> 1:26:29.439 keeper now will talk to me, but the president won't 1:26:29.479 --> 1:26:31.320 talk to me. I've sent him two letters and he's 1:26:31.360 --> 1:26:32.400 not answered either one of them. 1:26:33.640 --> 1:26:36.559 So you've lost I've lost friendships over this time. 1:26:36.600 --> 1:26:41.200 Well absolutely, I told him you're a hypocrite. IJFA is hypocritical. 1:26:41.880 --> 1:26:44.400 You first set Lawton aside because of the photograph, but 1:26:44.439 --> 1:26:47.400 that wasn't it at all, because when it comes to 1:26:47.479 --> 1:26:51.200 Johnson's fish, it can't go by photographs, so we're gonna 1:26:51.200 --> 1:26:55.400 go by scale weight, certified Scalewaight. Well, Lawton had all that, 1:26:55.760 --> 1:26:57.920 so he said, have never been disqualified in the first place. 1:26:58.720 --> 1:27:00.679 Oh yeah, I've lost a lot of friends I lost. 1:27:00.760 --> 1:27:05.040 You know, the guy that did the protest, the current 1:27:05.080 --> 1:27:06.800 director of the Hall of Fame was my best friend 1:27:06.840 --> 1:27:10.200 at the time, and that went by the wayside. In fact, 1:27:10.240 --> 1:27:12.600 we were supposed to go to Texas duck hunt and 1:27:12.680 --> 1:27:14.360 he had to cancel the trips so we could stay 1:27:14.400 --> 1:27:18.920 there and help build their bullshit case against the WWME protests. 1:27:19.720 --> 1:27:21.000 So when was that? 1:27:21.000 --> 1:27:24.679 That was in two thousand and six. 1:27:25.560 --> 1:27:28.080 Have you ever seen guys come to blows over muskies? 1:27:30.280 --> 1:27:32.559 I don't think so. I mean, there's a lot of 1:27:32.560 --> 1:27:35.680 bad blood in the muskie world, but there's a lot 1:27:35.720 --> 1:27:38.760 of good blood and musky world too, I mean the 1:27:39.280 --> 1:27:43.679 serious I know all the top names in the game. 1:27:43.880 --> 1:27:44.160 Yep. 1:27:45.280 --> 1:27:47.080 Fished with a lot of them, friends with a lot 1:27:47.080 --> 1:27:49.920 of them. My personal guide on the Saint Lawrence River 1:27:50.000 --> 1:27:52.560 is probably the best on the planet. I'm piassed a 1:27:52.560 --> 1:27:55.720 little bit, but he's caught over fifty to fifty pounders. 1:27:55.840 --> 1:27:59.240 You know, Wow, there's nobody in history, I mean very 1:27:59.240 --> 1:28:01.439 few muskerfish and I ever catch a thirty pounder, let 1:28:01.479 --> 1:28:04.120 alone a fifty pound He's caught two fifty eight and 1:28:04.120 --> 1:28:06.200 a half pounders. His clients have called him, but he 1:28:06.280 --> 1:28:09.160 was the guide to mean, in my mind that fish 1:28:09.160 --> 1:28:11.040 that I showed you that I called it was his fish. 1:28:11.080 --> 1:28:13.000 He was He put us on the fish. I just 1:28:13.040 --> 1:28:13.479 reeled it in. 1:28:15.080 --> 1:28:17.880 But what do you think about like a what do 1:28:17.880 --> 1:28:22.360 you think about a world, a subset of fishing, hunting, 1:28:22.400 --> 1:28:28.960 subset whatever that gets to where everything, you know, it 1:28:29.000 --> 1:28:31.479 just winds up being that every picture is is like, 1:28:32.320 --> 1:28:36.080 how what an idiot someone is? They did that wrong. 1:28:36.840 --> 1:28:39.680 They caught a big one, but they were lucky. They 1:28:39.720 --> 1:28:43.639 didn't deserve it. They must have been lying. 1:28:43.800 --> 1:28:46.840 That's jealousy at most of it. Yeah, there's a lot 1:28:46.840 --> 1:28:49.479 of that goes on. But you know, the guys that 1:28:49.520 --> 1:28:56.439 are consistent, they're respected. They're respected most of them. I mean, 1:28:56.479 --> 1:29:02.800 there's there's always some screwballs that make fun or deny anything, yep, 1:29:03.200 --> 1:29:07.680 But for the most part, like this fish, let's say 1:29:07.680 --> 1:29:11.200 I did weigh seventy two pounds. If it had been 1:29:11.880 --> 1:29:16.160 properly documented, we would be celebrating it. The one thing 1:29:16.200 --> 1:29:18.320 that blew me away and I kind of got that 1:29:18.400 --> 1:29:21.519 explained to me when I talked to Observing number five 1:29:22.360 --> 1:29:26.559 that anybody in the musky world that I know, if 1:29:26.560 --> 1:29:28.639 they catch the world record, they're gonna be screaming from 1:29:28.640 --> 1:29:32.479 the rooftops. Yeah, I mean, and some guys would be 1:29:32.520 --> 1:29:36.920 looking for sponsorships and whatever and free taxidermy the whole 1:29:37.000 --> 1:29:39.960 nine yards. But not a peep out of these guys. 1:29:40.720 --> 1:29:42.720 And so I put a challenge on the post that 1:29:42.720 --> 1:29:45.240 I made a muskie first and not a peep. And 1:29:45.280 --> 1:29:47.519 I thought the guy that published the picture without the 1:29:47.560 --> 1:29:49.960 heads was one of the group. Well it turns out 1:29:50.040 --> 1:29:52.200 that when I talked to observing number five, he said 1:29:52.240 --> 1:29:56.400 that it's obviously one of our our inner circle, but 1:29:56.479 --> 1:29:58.960 we don't know who it was. It wasn't one of 1:29:58.960 --> 1:30:03.240 the five. So that's that's one thing that had thrown me, 1:30:03.360 --> 1:30:06.160 is why we weren't hearing from him back, like, well, 1:30:06.200 --> 1:30:08.040 show you a picture and won't tell you nothing else. 1:30:08.880 --> 1:30:11.600 And you know, I emailed this guy private email a 1:30:11.640 --> 1:30:14.160 couple of times and never got any response because he 1:30:14.240 --> 1:30:15.920 wasn't burt of the group. He didn't know anything. 1:30:16.800 --> 1:30:19.360 Was there a time when you how bad did you 1:30:19.400 --> 1:30:21.759 want to be a world record holder? 1:30:23.040 --> 1:30:26.439 Since nineteen fifty seven you were hoping for that to happen. 1:30:27.000 --> 1:30:28.880 I mean that have you given up or you think 1:30:28.880 --> 1:30:29.760 you still got a chance. 1:30:29.800 --> 1:30:32.760 I still got a shot But here's the thing. You've 1:30:32.760 --> 1:30:36.360 got a fish where they are. And I always tell people, 1:30:37.200 --> 1:30:39.120 if you want to catch a big musky, you've got 1:30:39.120 --> 1:30:40.400 to go where big muskies live. 1:30:40.520 --> 1:30:40.880 Amen. 1:30:41.560 --> 1:30:45.799 And if you don't, your odds are zero. And that's 1:30:46.320 --> 1:30:49.040 that's one of the things about you know, we promote 1:30:49.040 --> 1:30:52.120 catch and release for everybody of water because all of 1:30:52.160 --> 1:30:54.000 them can be hurt with too much pressure and too 1:30:54.040 --> 1:31:00.519 much harvests, as I've proven, I think based on mortality, 1:31:00.560 --> 1:31:03.360 and the more newros, newcomers that come to the game 1:31:03.640 --> 1:31:05.800 and don't not handle these fish, it's gonna get worse. 1:31:06.439 --> 1:31:09.760 So we need to start a bigger education program on 1:31:09.880 --> 1:31:13.559 how to handle these fish. But you know, experience tops everything. 1:31:13.560 --> 1:31:15.080 You've got to handle a few of them to learn 1:31:15.120 --> 1:31:18.040 how to handle them. So it's a double edged sword. 1:31:18.120 --> 1:31:20.840 But if we get too many at one thrust in 1:31:20.920 --> 1:31:22.599 the game and they don't want to handle them, they're 1:31:22.600 --> 1:31:24.920 gonna kill everything to catch and we'll be back to 1:31:24.960 --> 1:31:29.240 the mid nineteen fifties and one hundred thousand fish go 1:31:30.000 --> 1:31:31.080 to the grave every tear. 1:31:32.439 --> 1:31:36.599 You know what this guy's actual name is, Musky Chat, 1:31:37.200 --> 1:31:39.800 Musky Chet. This guy's coming hot on your hot on 1:31:39.840 --> 1:31:40.640 your heels. 1:31:40.360 --> 1:31:44.479 Dude, welcome. In fact, I've been trying to find somebody 1:31:44.479 --> 1:31:46.559 to take over for me because I'm not gonna live forever. 1:31:46.760 --> 1:31:49.320 There we go, I'll be the next musky. 1:31:49.560 --> 1:31:50.400 You got a spare room? 1:31:51.920 --> 1:31:54.800 Unfortunately no, but I need somebody to move in for 1:31:54.840 --> 1:31:58.880 a while. The problem I've got And I was talking 1:31:58.920 --> 1:32:02.840 to Krint Carimat at lunch today, I said, if you 1:32:02.880 --> 1:32:05.200 were to saw the top of my head off, got 1:32:05.280 --> 1:32:09.040 you a bunch of little musky swim around. 1:32:10.560 --> 1:32:12.320 If it wasn't muskies, what would have what do you 1:32:12.320 --> 1:32:15.200 think it would have been? Because you know what, oh 1:32:15.680 --> 1:32:16.599 you already I. 1:32:16.560 --> 1:32:20.040 Was a big time duck hunter for a long time. Yeah, yeah, do. 1:32:20.000 --> 1:32:21.639 You feel like he got a little bit of a 1:32:23.320 --> 1:32:24.519 do you got? Do you feel like you got like 1:32:24.520 --> 1:32:27.280 some like a O C D or like uh or 1:32:27.360 --> 1:32:30.240 like like do you feel that if it was for muskies, 1:32:30.240 --> 1:32:32.280 you would have been into something that you can count, 1:32:32.560 --> 1:32:34.240 probably something that you could qualify. 1:32:34.400 --> 1:32:34.879 Probably. 1:32:35.120 --> 1:32:37.760 Yeah. We met a guy he passed away recently that 1:32:37.880 --> 1:32:42.200 was an antler collector. Okay, right, And if God had 1:32:42.240 --> 1:32:44.920 never put antlers on deer, that's some bit would been 1:32:44.960 --> 1:32:47.400 collecting something. I don't know what it would have been. 1:32:47.439 --> 1:32:49.679 It would have been petrified rocks. It would have been 1:32:50.640 --> 1:32:52.880 like something he. 1:32:52.840 --> 1:32:55.560 Was born to collect to collect. 1:32:56.600 --> 1:32:59.080 It's just like a freak chance sort of that he 1:32:59.200 --> 1:33:00.000 got onto antlers. 1:33:00.439 --> 1:33:04.120 I've got all kinds of collections, Musky pins, musky buttons, 1:33:04.200 --> 1:33:10.559 musky patches, musky bottles, musky wineglasses, musky beer cans, you 1:33:10.680 --> 1:33:13.000 name it, musky, I got it. 1:33:13.000 --> 1:33:16.720 It's just do you feel like, are you glad about it? 1:33:18.920 --> 1:33:21.640 Are you ever afraid you'd someday be like, God, damn it? 1:33:21.680 --> 1:33:23.639 Really muskies, no whole life. 1:33:23.760 --> 1:33:26.080 No, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I wouldn't go 1:33:26.120 --> 1:33:29.760 back and start something different. I'm happy with where I've 1:33:29.800 --> 1:33:31.280 been and still going. 1:33:32.200 --> 1:33:34.200 So how do you feel about the fate of the fishery. 1:33:35.000 --> 1:33:42.000 I'm worried about the new handling explosion, new anglers, and 1:33:42.000 --> 1:33:45.400 I'm worried about Ford facing sonar. If the guys use 1:33:45.439 --> 1:33:47.280 it ethically, I got no problem with it. 1:33:47.880 --> 1:33:51.160 What's an ethical way versus a not ethical way? 1:33:51.360 --> 1:33:54.080 Okay? Muskies, Big Muskies spend a lot of time in 1:33:54.120 --> 1:33:56.400 deep water bear trauma. 1:33:56.840 --> 1:33:58.840 Is that same with the same with northerns. 1:33:58.920 --> 1:34:02.000 Yeah, big, the big, Northern, small, Northern stay shallow yep 1:34:02.520 --> 1:34:06.240 So if in the summertime, when the water surface temperature 1:34:06.280 --> 1:34:09.920 seventy five, seventy eight, even eighty degrees and you're pulling 1:34:09.920 --> 1:34:12.160 a fish out of forty feet of water that's probably 1:34:12.760 --> 1:34:16.600 sixty eight degrees down there, you're gonna kill it fish 1:34:16.600 --> 1:34:19.120 pretty much. That's where the ethics come in. 1:34:19.360 --> 1:34:22.400 Yeah, but you're gonna use this technology. They're gonna handle 1:34:22.400 --> 1:34:25.000 more fish, They're gonna be catching more fish in their 1:34:25.040 --> 1:34:27.880 own places. They're gonna be maybe not so educated on 1:34:27.920 --> 1:34:29.840 how to deal with them once they do catch them. 1:34:30.479 --> 1:34:32.720 And it's just each fish is gonna be more exposed 1:34:32.720 --> 1:34:35.040 to more higher likelihood of getting handled. 1:34:35.080 --> 1:34:38.759 Hearing this, Yeah, so I've got this is like I said, 1:34:38.800 --> 1:34:43.599 this topic is opening up a can of worms. There 1:34:43.680 --> 1:34:50.000 are some spot faced sonars there. There's absolutely no doubt 1:34:50.240 --> 1:34:51.599 that it helps you catch fish. 1:34:52.120 --> 1:34:55.280 Oh absolutely, there's that badfish. Guides are loving it. 1:34:55.439 --> 1:34:57.200 Yeah, that's that's not propies are. 1:34:57.080 --> 1:34:59.840 Going to put the first one to suffer the things that. 1:35:00.000 --> 1:35:03.720 Oh that this has to be very self governing, which 1:35:03.760 --> 1:35:07.200 is very hard to do. Exactly if people are just 1:35:07.240 --> 1:35:11.240 catching fish and not handling correctly, Yeah, that's a problem. However, 1:35:11.320 --> 1:35:15.280 there are arguments to be had how forward facing sonar 1:35:15.400 --> 1:35:18.800 can educate you if learned how to use it property 1:35:18.960 --> 1:35:22.240 Like if you are fishing, for example, on a break 1:35:22.280 --> 1:35:26.080 line right that is in ten feet of water, but 1:35:26.200 --> 1:35:29.200 it's close to forty feet of water, and you can't 1:35:29.240 --> 1:35:33.360 see down in some deep weeds or something where muskies 1:35:33.400 --> 1:35:36.800 could be, you know, being caught, and you're casting this 1:35:36.920 --> 1:35:42.000 break line. The water temperature is pushing eighty degrees and 1:35:42.200 --> 1:35:44.000 all of a sudden you see a muskie shoot up 1:35:44.000 --> 1:35:46.559 out of that forty feet of water into the ten 1:35:46.600 --> 1:35:50.240 feet of water and you catch them. That's probably not 1:35:50.360 --> 1:35:53.280 a good thing, but you just learned something there with 1:35:53.439 --> 1:35:56.000 live sonar that would be really hard to learn if 1:35:56.040 --> 1:35:56.880 you didn't have it. 1:35:57.120 --> 1:36:01.120 Oh well, yeah, I'm very simpathetic to what you're saying 1:36:01.160 --> 1:36:08.480 right now, is that, uh, it educates, and all this technology, 1:36:08.920 --> 1:36:13.200 not all that much of the technology educates. We used 1:36:13.200 --> 1:36:16.040 to like at our area where we are in southeast Alaska. 1:36:16.479 --> 1:36:18.160 If you to I'm not kidding. If you'd come to 1:36:18.160 --> 1:36:22.240 me ten years ago, not even ten years ago, eight 1:36:22.320 --> 1:36:23.960 years ago, seven years ago, you'd come to me, I 1:36:23.960 --> 1:36:26.680 would have said, for some weird reason, we don't have 1:36:26.800 --> 1:36:34.000 link cod where we're at. I would have said that 1:36:34.160 --> 1:36:36.559 up until a very like definable moment. I would have 1:36:36.560 --> 1:36:39.320 said that until I got my hands on navionics. Once 1:36:39.360 --> 1:36:41.519 I got my hands on navionics, I'm like, oh shit, 1:36:41.640 --> 1:36:46.040 was linkoind all over place? I just never knew. I 1:36:46.120 --> 1:36:49.559 never understood the contours. We used to fish off marine 1:36:49.600 --> 1:36:55.120 charts with like like handfuls of uh fathom readings on 1:36:55.200 --> 1:36:58.200 marine charts, paper marine charts. Once I knew, like, oh 1:36:58.240 --> 1:37:02.120 my god, this's like that down there, and there's specific 1:37:03.439 --> 1:37:08.559 ridgelines and specific pinnacle tops and like that one doesn't, 1:37:08.680 --> 1:37:15.160 this one does, that one doesn't. It's hugely educational. I've 1:37:15.280 --> 1:37:17.880 learned so much about Lincott I'll tell you an art thing. 1:37:18.600 --> 1:37:20.760 We've cleaned a lot of Lincott off a lot of hilltops. 1:37:22.120 --> 1:37:25.160 It's like they go, you know, so the the new, 1:37:25.360 --> 1:37:28.640 the all the knowledge and information is great, it's beautiful, 1:37:30.560 --> 1:37:34.280 but you can hurt of fisher. Well, we never scratched 1:37:34.280 --> 1:37:38.639 those fish. We never ever scratched those fish, but you could. 1:37:38.760 --> 1:37:39.599 I know where they're at now. 1:37:41.120 --> 1:37:44.720 The first thing to like coming into ethics as far 1:37:44.760 --> 1:37:49.160 as you're hunting, when you fly into do go hunting 1:37:49.160 --> 1:37:52.719 in Alaska, Canada, you can't hunt the same day, right, correct, 1:37:53.240 --> 1:37:56.840 that's that's ethics. That's the same thing. I look at 1:37:56.920 --> 1:37:59.280 the forward fishing Somar. If you're going to run. 1:37:59.680 --> 1:38:02.160 I would argue ethics would be that you could, but 1:38:02.280 --> 1:38:02.880 choose not to. 1:38:04.040 --> 1:38:05.400 Yeah, but the law is the law. 1:38:05.600 --> 1:38:06.759 Well, the law is the law. 1:38:07.720 --> 1:38:09.880 The law is but it's the law for a reason. 1:38:12.840 --> 1:38:14.559 Yeah, we're getting a little bit chicken under the egg here, 1:38:14.560 --> 1:38:17.519 but yeah, you're right. Yeah, we we codify ethics, like 1:38:17.560 --> 1:38:19.639 we have laws that are meant to like lay down 1:38:19.720 --> 1:38:23.240 ethical understandings, right, Like we don't murder is not illegal 1:38:23.280 --> 1:38:26.599 because you know, you create a lot of like yeah, 1:38:26.600 --> 1:38:29.720 you create a lot of paperwork and big messes. It's 1:38:29.760 --> 1:38:34.160 like illegal because they've ethically decided that fracture side is bad. Yeah, 1:38:34.160 --> 1:38:35.800 you're right. Like a lot of a lot of law 1:38:35.880 --> 1:38:39.519 springs from ethics. A lot of method to take law 1:38:39.600 --> 1:38:43.040 and Baglin's and all that also spring from how would 1:38:43.040 --> 1:38:46.719 you put it resource management. 1:38:46.880 --> 1:38:51.080 There's one Canadian bologists been on the forums that where 1:38:51.120 --> 1:38:55.840 he is. He's in Manitoba. They have a none overrule 1:38:58.360 --> 1:39:02.720 red river big and catfit. Ye, well, you can keep 1:39:02.760 --> 1:39:04.720 them up to a certain size, but you can't keep 1:39:04.760 --> 1:39:08.559 any over that size because it's your breeders, and that's 1:39:08.600 --> 1:39:10.920 what he'd like to see happened to muskies, which would 1:39:10.960 --> 1:39:13.479 eliminate any possible future rural record obviously. 1:39:14.240 --> 1:39:16.759 But yeah, but you see what he's got a point 1:39:17.000 --> 1:39:18.559 that's pretty common in fisheries, right. 1:39:18.520 --> 1:39:22.839 Yeah, Well, there's a lot of slot limits to maintain 1:39:24.040 --> 1:39:26.920 enough fish in the fishery to keep it going. So 1:39:27.040 --> 1:39:31.600 you control by side limits of controlled by by bag limits. Uh, 1:39:32.200 --> 1:39:34.280 one of the lakes and Hayward there, they just went 1:39:34.320 --> 1:39:37.080 to a five bag panfish limit this year of any 1:39:37.160 --> 1:39:40.880 species of panfish. Five can't keep more than five because 1:39:40.880 --> 1:39:43.880 they were slaughtered them. They can't. They can't take that 1:39:44.000 --> 1:39:44.679 kind of pressure. 1:39:44.880 --> 1:39:47.280 They couldn't settle on something like a little more compromin 1:39:48.439 --> 1:39:54.280 five five. Yeah, I said, how about. 1:39:54.360 --> 1:39:55.840 I'm not a pan fisherman, so I don't care. 1:39:55.880 --> 1:39:59.320 But you're like, I got this barrel scaler I'm real 1:39:59.400 --> 1:40:02.799 fond of and it doesn't start spinning until there's thirty 1:40:02.800 --> 1:40:03.800 fishing muzz. 1:40:03.840 --> 1:40:06.519 Well, sell the bucket scaler. Now what lake was that? 1:40:06.920 --> 1:40:10.519 It's most lake Okay, it's east of Hayward twenty five miles. 1:40:10.800 --> 1:40:11.160 Got it. 1:40:11.760 --> 1:40:14.880 If you find the panfish sometimes you find the muskies. 1:40:14.520 --> 1:40:15.719 Though Chester. 1:40:15.800 --> 1:40:18.920 Do you have aspirations of being a world record holder? 1:40:20.560 --> 1:40:24.960 Uh? I mean if I got got a big fish, like, 1:40:25.120 --> 1:40:27.880 for instance, Cal and I. One time we're out on 1:40:28.200 --> 1:40:31.719 a lake recent a couple of years ago around here, 1:40:32.240 --> 1:40:35.880 we caught a giant fish. We were not prepared. Do 1:40:35.960 --> 1:40:40.120 I really care that I would? You know? Could you know? 1:40:40.439 --> 1:40:43.559 It probably wasn't. I don't think could. 1:40:43.600 --> 1:40:45.160 I think it was, though, but go ahead? 1:40:46.040 --> 1:40:50.640 Could have like a state record. I don't necessarily think it. 1:40:51.000 --> 1:40:53.759 I care about having my name number one, but it'd 1:40:53.800 --> 1:40:56.360 just be nice to kind of know when my heart 1:40:56.400 --> 1:40:59.599 how big that fish was, you know. So like next 1:40:59.600 --> 1:41:02.160 time I I'm out in Wisconsin, you know, on a 1:41:02.200 --> 1:41:06.320 big fish water, I will I will be equipped with 1:41:06.360 --> 1:41:09.599 the right tools to actually know how big that fish is. 1:41:09.840 --> 1:41:11.920 Oh, if someone said to me, would you like a 1:41:11.960 --> 1:41:15.519 state record fish? I would say emphatically yes. 1:41:15.400 --> 1:41:17.679 Yes, right, yeah, I mean they. 1:41:17.600 --> 1:41:20.360 Said why, I'd be like, I'm not sure, but I 1:41:20.439 --> 1:41:21.120 know that I do. 1:41:22.040 --> 1:41:22.840 Fish is great. 1:41:22.840 --> 1:41:25.000 It's just a normal progression of mine. You want more 1:41:25.000 --> 1:41:27.280 and more and more better, better, better, bigger, bigger, bigger. 1:41:27.400 --> 1:41:29.880 Yeah, it's pretty fun. I was talking to a friend 1:41:29.880 --> 1:41:34.320 of mine yesterday and he was talking about how like 1:41:34.439 --> 1:41:39.200 trophy l hunts are bad for recruitment. I was like, well, 1:41:39.240 --> 1:41:43.280 why is that. He's like, have you ever ever run 1:41:43.280 --> 1:41:46.640 into some dude who paid twenty five thousand dollars to 1:41:46.680 --> 1:41:49.559 go on this super exclusive, big time el hunt and 1:41:49.640 --> 1:41:51.519 was like, and by the way, my six year old 1:41:51.600 --> 1:41:52.920 kid's going to be with us, He's going to be 1:41:52.920 --> 1:41:56.439 screwing everything up. And I was like, no, I guess 1:41:56.439 --> 1:41:59.400 I haven't. 1:41:58.439 --> 1:42:00.200 Unless I'm that following saying. 1:42:00.080 --> 1:42:07.320 He's like, he's like big time hunts don't propagate hunting 1:42:07.880 --> 1:42:11.679 because it's like he's like that the group of folks, 1:42:11.720 --> 1:42:13.040 they're not bringing the kids along. 1:42:13.160 --> 1:42:15.560 Yeah. No, I'm with you. Yeah, I'm with you. I 1:42:15.560 --> 1:42:19.200 don't know that entirely, but I should get what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, 1:42:21.120 --> 1:42:22.760 I could see something like that happened to me and 1:42:22.800 --> 1:42:25.880 being right away in my head being like, I'm not 1:42:25.960 --> 1:42:27.680 bringing all my freaking kids. 1:42:27.760 --> 1:42:33.000 Right, I'm the how much time. 1:42:32.880 --> 1:42:33.360 Are we at? 1:42:33.479 --> 1:42:34.720 We're at time to wrap it out? 1:42:35.600 --> 1:42:38.280 I wanted to talk go ahead, hit worry about fishing 1:42:38.360 --> 1:42:40.120 more actually fishing muskies. 1:42:41.040 --> 1:42:42.040 Yeah, give him the big one. 1:42:42.439 --> 1:42:45.840 There's there's one that I know the answer to this, 1:42:45.920 --> 1:42:47.920 and I know what you're going to say, But the 1:42:48.640 --> 1:42:51.840 fish of a ten thousand casts, you know, that's what 1:42:52.040 --> 1:42:57.920 everyone calls the muskie. Yeah, we could talk about fishing. 1:42:57.560 --> 1:42:59.920 For Have you calculated it out? How many casts? 1:43:00.120 --> 1:43:01.280 That's not quite that many. 1:43:02.000 --> 1:43:07.640 I mean that would be one cast every minute for 1:43:07.800 --> 1:43:09.400 roughly seven days straight. 1:43:11.479 --> 1:43:15.720 And that was born a fact. Then in the mid 1:43:15.840 --> 1:43:18.559 nineteen hundreds, when they were killing one hundred thousand muskies 1:43:18.560 --> 1:43:23.960 a year, it probably took that many. But today, if 1:43:23.960 --> 1:43:25.880 you take more than a thousand casts, you're in the 1:43:25.960 --> 1:43:31.599 wrong spot. You're not doing something right. In fact, if. 1:43:31.479 --> 1:43:35.320 You had to catch a big musky, are you throwing 1:43:36.080 --> 1:43:37.920 baits or you're using a live. 1:43:37.760 --> 1:43:42.040 Bait throwing baits almost exclusively just. 1:43:42.040 --> 1:43:43.360 Because you're covering water. 1:43:43.320 --> 1:43:48.280 Covering water, and you're going to get in front of 1:43:48.280 --> 1:43:51.240 a big fish if you're on big fish water. For instance, 1:43:51.240 --> 1:43:55.080 when I first started going out yeast, we fished five 1:43:55.160 --> 1:43:58.400 days in July. We were there for five days. We 1:43:58.520 --> 1:44:02.639 catch twenty four fish, three of us yeah, and six 1:44:02.680 --> 1:44:06.400 of those would be fifty inches. Go back in August 1:44:06.479 --> 1:44:11.400 for another five days freezer fillers and catch forty in 1:44:11.479 --> 1:44:15.599 five days, and six of them over fifty inches hotter water, 1:44:15.680 --> 1:44:18.040 the fish are more active, metabolism is high, and they're 1:44:18.160 --> 1:44:22.360 going crazy, and they're stupid fish. It's not quite that 1:44:22.439 --> 1:44:24.240 good now because we've beat the hell out of them 1:44:24.240 --> 1:44:27.000 for twenty eight years, so in fact more than that. 1:44:27.160 --> 1:44:32.120 But they're getting they're getting a little educated, harder to 1:44:32.240 --> 1:44:36.200 catch up. But we're still Last year was not a 1:44:36.240 --> 1:44:39.439 normal year. But on a normal year, three of us 1:44:40.040 --> 1:44:43.840 in the two weeks we should catch six or eight 1:44:43.880 --> 1:44:47.160 fifty inch fish or bigger, up to fifty seven fifty eight. 1:44:47.240 --> 1:44:50.960 My buddy who was nine weeks in a coma with COVID, 1:44:51.880 --> 1:44:55.479 got out of COVID, got a little bit healthy that 1:44:55.720 --> 1:44:58.160 when the Canadian border was closed with got a word 1:44:58.160 --> 1:45:00.960 they were going to open it up. At midnight on 1:45:01.000 --> 1:45:03.080 the night of opening, we were sitting at the border 1:45:03.160 --> 1:45:07.920 station in New York ready to go. And two days later, 1:45:08.200 --> 1:45:11.479 three days later, Saturday Sundays, two days later, you got 1:45:11.479 --> 1:45:14.599 a fifty eight and a half incher with a fourteen 1:45:14.640 --> 1:45:17.880 inch head. Imagine there's a fourteen inch fourteen and a 1:45:17.920 --> 1:45:21.200 half inch head. It's just incredible. It's incredible. 1:45:21.560 --> 1:45:21.880 What are you? 1:45:22.200 --> 1:45:24.479 Two last questions for me, how many musky baits? 1:45:24.479 --> 1:45:27.240 Do you have, Well, I don't have as many as 1:45:27.240 --> 1:45:30.160 I used to have, but I've probably still got several hundred. 1:45:30.600 --> 1:45:32.840 It seems like musky guys like their base. 1:45:32.920 --> 1:45:34.840 Here's the thing that drives me crazy being an author. 1:45:35.960 --> 1:45:39.720 These guys that are the nutcases would rather spend one 1:45:39.840 --> 1:45:43.840 hundred dollars on their seven hundred musky lure than to 1:45:43.920 --> 1:45:47.519 spend thirty five bucks for a book that explains the 1:45:47.560 --> 1:45:49.839 history of their part. It makes me crazy. 1:45:50.240 --> 1:45:52.559 Another question, what boat you fishing out of? 1:45:53.120 --> 1:45:53.439 Ranger? 1:45:53.520 --> 1:45:56.559 Normally nice? 1:45:57.400 --> 1:45:58.800 You know when you're talking about the fish of ten 1:45:58.840 --> 1:46:01.920 thousand casts and you calculate it out, how long you 1:46:01.920 --> 1:46:04.120 have to do that? Yeah? Kind of One of the 1:46:04.160 --> 1:46:06.920 highlights of my dad's life is a guy wrote an 1:46:06.960 --> 1:46:09.280 article about his still hunting method, and you put down 1:46:09.320 --> 1:46:11.280 how many steps and how long he waits, and my 1:46:11.400 --> 1:46:15.200 dad wrote a letter to the editor saying that he'd 1:46:15.240 --> 1:46:17.040 still be forty yards from his truck at the end. 1:46:17.000 --> 1:46:17.759 Of the day or something. 1:46:19.720 --> 1:46:21.840 Highlight of his life got to publish. 1:46:23.360 --> 1:46:24.640 That is hilarious. 1:46:24.920 --> 1:46:28.080 Yeah, none of the couple hundred lures that you have 1:46:28.439 --> 1:46:31.080 larry a couple hundred baits that you have. If you 1:46:31.120 --> 1:46:34.320 had to be like you can only take five across 1:46:34.360 --> 1:46:35.320 the border to Canada. 1:46:36.000 --> 1:46:37.000 What would those five be? 1:46:38.439 --> 1:46:41.200 Four of the five would be bucktails in one surface bait. 1:46:42.479 --> 1:46:44.200 I got a question for you. You think Chester is an 1:46:44.240 --> 1:46:45.599 idiot for using those lures. 1:46:45.640 --> 1:46:47.719 Those are two of the deadlish lures on the planet. 1:46:47.760 --> 1:46:49.000 Good for Chester, job? 1:46:49.479 --> 1:46:53.600 Yeah, this thing is catching so many giant fish. The 1:46:53.640 --> 1:46:55.720 only problem I got with this bait is if you're 1:46:55.720 --> 1:46:59.920 not properly tooled up. The fish swallow these things practically 1:47:00.040 --> 1:47:01.960 and they'll get hooked back deep in the gills. 1:47:02.040 --> 1:47:05.080 They want to eat that thing, Their lips hit it 1:47:05.080 --> 1:47:05.960 and they think it's real. 1:47:06.080 --> 1:47:07.760 So you got to have a tool. It's called a 1:47:07.800 --> 1:47:11.680 hook pick. It'll reach in there and like if they 1:47:11.720 --> 1:47:15.160 get hook over the gill raker, you can actually lift 1:47:15.160 --> 1:47:17.719 that hook up, push it backwards a little bit, lift 1:47:17.720 --> 1:47:19.840 it up and pull it out without ripping the gill 1:47:19.880 --> 1:47:20.479 out of the fish. 1:47:21.000 --> 1:47:22.599 How much money got sunk into this lure? 1:47:22.680 --> 1:47:24.080 Chester? That lure? 1:47:24.600 --> 1:47:25.720 Uh? 1:47:26.160 --> 1:47:33.720 I want to say, I can't quite remember. I'd say 1:47:34.120 --> 1:47:35.400 that's this. 1:47:35.400 --> 1:47:37.760 This is a Suey was developed in the thirties by 1:47:37.760 --> 1:47:39.880 a guy named Frank Suey. He caught a musky day 1:47:39.920 --> 1:47:44.519 for thirty days out of Pelican Lake. The lake owners 1:47:44.560 --> 1:47:46.960 had a petition to the governor to get him banned 1:47:46.960 --> 1:47:47.679 from fishing. 1:47:47.760 --> 1:47:52.000 And back in the day when you'd write the governor, 1:47:53.280 --> 1:47:58.040 they wanted him to stop because he's going to clean 1:47:58.080 --> 1:47:58.519 the lake out. 1:47:58.600 --> 1:48:01.320 Yeah, because you kept every one of them that was 1:48:01.320 --> 1:48:06.920 in a key. What years did your grandfather fish man? 1:48:07.200 --> 1:48:13.960 So he died, Get bear with me minute. He died 1:48:14.080 --> 1:48:17.040 in around eighty four, at eighty. 1:48:18.400 --> 1:48:20.960 Okay, help me out here. 1:48:21.560 --> 1:48:23.960 He was not much so by when I was born, 1:48:24.000 --> 1:48:27.559 when I was a little kid, he was not that active. 1:48:28.320 --> 1:48:31.599 So I would say fifties and sixties. He's a big muscard. 1:48:31.600 --> 1:48:34.960 That's everybody kept him and a one hundred thousand a 1:48:35.000 --> 1:48:38.480 year died and d n R tried like hell to 1:48:38.520 --> 1:48:42.599 make enough babies just replace them, and fishing was tough 1:48:42.680 --> 1:48:43.040 enough day. 1:48:43.120 --> 1:48:46.880 Yeah, he was from a farm and what is now Naperville, Illinois. 1:48:47.120 --> 1:48:48.960 She'd never guess you could be from a farm there. 1:48:49.560 --> 1:48:52.840 It was orchards and stuff. He was from a farm there. 1:48:52.960 --> 1:48:56.000 And when on when they went on vacations, they would 1:48:56.040 --> 1:49:00.640 go up into Wisconsin to fish muskiees like that was 1:49:00.680 --> 1:49:01.160 what he did. 1:49:01.360 --> 1:49:04.439 I mean, Wisconsin was the muskie mecca of North America 1:49:05.200 --> 1:49:09.080 for a long time, actually formal muskie fish. He started 1:49:09.080 --> 1:49:12.880 on the Saint Lawrence River in eighteen eighties in both 1:49:12.960 --> 1:49:18.200 Quebec and Ontario, New York, and then it graduated inland 1:49:18.240 --> 1:49:23.360 to Chautauqua Lake, New York, which small body water produces 1:49:23.400 --> 1:49:27.639 a lot of fish thousands, but they stocked a hell 1:49:27.680 --> 1:49:30.320 of it. They stuck like thirteen thousand a year there. 1:49:30.360 --> 1:49:30.559 Two. 1:49:30.840 --> 1:49:32.479 Yep. You want to know something that chaps my ass, 1:49:32.560 --> 1:49:35.120 Larry in Wisconsin? 1:49:35.479 --> 1:49:35.880 What But. 1:49:38.880 --> 1:49:41.280 In Wisconsin they've been trying to push to get pike 1:49:41.360 --> 1:49:44.200 spearing through the ice, and you know who blocks it, 1:49:45.400 --> 1:49:49.360 the musky community. The muskie community feels like an American 1:49:49.400 --> 1:49:54.840 angler can't distinguish between the northern and a muskie. So 1:49:54.960 --> 1:49:56.840 the minu, you let them spear pike through the ice, 1:49:56.880 --> 1:50:00.000 they're gonna start killing muskies. Friend of mine pointing out 1:50:00.040 --> 1:50:03.080 out you can count on people to tell one kind 1:50:03.080 --> 1:50:05.640 of duck from another. You can count on them to 1:50:05.680 --> 1:50:08.439 tell whether a spike antler is three inches or three 1:50:08.439 --> 1:50:11.280 and a quarter inches. You can count on them to 1:50:11.400 --> 1:50:14.720 I could go on no, no, no, which I can't 1:50:14.800 --> 1:50:16.439 count on them to tell a muskie from a pike. 1:50:16.520 --> 1:50:17.439 What do you think about that? 1:50:18.160 --> 1:50:20.080 Uh, it's possible. 1:50:20.560 --> 1:50:24.839 Would you support did you stand strong with pike spears? 1:50:25.200 --> 1:50:31.800 I to stand against any spirit? What about surgeon spir 1:50:31.920 --> 1:50:35.080 Now I understand him. Like in Michigan you can steal 1:50:35.120 --> 1:50:38.080 spear muskies in Michigan you can't. Only one a year 1:50:38.160 --> 1:50:41.120 now used to be carte blanche, but now it's only 1:50:41.120 --> 1:50:41.599 one a year. 1:50:42.560 --> 1:50:45.040 But you don't like any through the ice spearing. 1:50:45.280 --> 1:50:47.439 I don't like any through the ice catching either. Fact. 1:50:49.040 --> 1:50:54.639 To give you an example where I where I fish 1:50:55.479 --> 1:50:58.479 to wrap it up? Where I fish on the Saint 1:50:58.560 --> 1:50:59.080 Lawrence River. 1:50:59.280 --> 1:50:59.519 Huh. 1:51:00.240 --> 1:51:03.840 Until this year, the season for muskies didn't close until 1:51:03.840 --> 1:51:08.439 March thirty. First, well from sometimes mid December at least 1:51:08.600 --> 1:51:11.160 late December to the end of March. It's froze up. 1:51:11.840 --> 1:51:16.559 Not a big deal, but you could actually fish for 1:51:16.600 --> 1:51:19.599 them legitimately with rod and reel until the end of March, 1:51:19.800 --> 1:51:23.760 which means you're catching an egg laden fom. But the 1:51:23.800 --> 1:51:26.599 reason that they're cutting it back to December nineteenth will 1:51:26.640 --> 1:51:29.320 be the date next year is because in the last 1:51:29.400 --> 1:51:31.799 few years have been killing so many really big muskies 1:51:31.800 --> 1:51:33.000 through the ice ice fishing. 1:51:33.240 --> 1:51:36.360 Oh, like, are you ever calling through the ice. 1:51:36.600 --> 1:51:40.839 No, I only tried once. I'm not an ice fisherman. 1:51:41.400 --> 1:51:44.120 Last year it stayed Lake State open, so guys were 1:51:44.160 --> 1:51:45.879 fishing open water into. 1:51:45.680 --> 1:51:47.000 This opened up early this year. 1:51:47.000 --> 1:51:47.120 Too. 1:51:47.160 --> 1:51:48.040 It's crazy. 1:51:48.439 --> 1:51:52.759 One last question, how big are you on the following 1:51:53.000 --> 1:51:54.639 moon phases and musky fishing? 1:51:54.760 --> 1:51:56.360 You know, I kept track of that for years, and 1:51:56.400 --> 1:51:58.439 I tried to be faithful to them, and I found 1:51:58.520 --> 1:52:01.840 I catched just as many in between simler periods as 1:52:01.840 --> 1:52:04.320 I did on them, So I just quit worrying about it. Now. 1:52:04.360 --> 1:52:08.080 My guide he's religious about we're getting close to a period, 1:52:08.120 --> 1:52:10.519 we're going to be on a good spot, and sometimes 1:52:10.600 --> 1:52:13.479 it paid off and sometimes don't. Sometimes we catch big 1:52:13.520 --> 1:52:16.280 fishings nowhere near a period, so he can believe if 1:52:16.320 --> 1:52:17.240 he wants. I don't believe. 1:52:17.560 --> 1:52:20.759 And what we're talking about there is like moon rise 1:52:20.920 --> 1:52:23.160 as soon as the moon's coming out, moon set or 1:52:23.240 --> 1:52:25.800 moon moon overhead are like. 1:52:26.400 --> 1:52:29.920 My opinion is that because people believe that that's when 1:52:29.920 --> 1:52:34.200 they're fishing. They're not off periods, they're not off onny 1:52:34.320 --> 1:52:37.760 out there on the off hours, but when it's moon 1:52:37.840 --> 1:52:40.280 up time or moonset and time, they're out there. 1:52:40.360 --> 1:52:42.800 Yeah, it's like we're getting them on shar troops. What 1:52:42.920 --> 1:52:46.519 you been using for a long time? 1:52:46.640 --> 1:52:50.240 Black bucktail with a silver spinner blade, that was they're 1:52:50.280 --> 1:52:54.840 probably up until say nineteen seventy. There's probably more musk 1:52:54.880 --> 1:52:58.599 he's caught on that one color combination bucktail then all 1:52:58.600 --> 1:53:01.800 the other musky baites put together there. That's just because 1:53:01.800 --> 1:53:03.400 that's whatever Foddy was throwing. 1:53:03.920 --> 1:53:08.000 H guess what I got know one for you? Do 1:53:08.000 --> 1:53:10.880 you get excited about catching a tiger muskie? You know? 1:53:11.040 --> 1:53:14.040 I for years said I'll killing mount the first tiger 1:53:14.160 --> 1:53:16.120 musky ever catch. It took me quite a few years, 1:53:16.200 --> 1:53:17.760 and I caught it out of a place. I didn't 1:53:17.760 --> 1:53:19.680 ever dream to catch a tiger musky. But it's on 1:53:19.760 --> 1:53:23.479 my wall. But I love tigers, in fact, almost more 1:53:23.520 --> 1:53:26.439 than muskies. No way, I love tigers. 1:53:26.479 --> 1:53:30.439 Did you fry it up? Yeah? 1:53:30.880 --> 1:53:32.800 But I've caught bigger one sincing and put them. 1:53:32.760 --> 1:53:39.040 Back all right, Larry, thanks for coming on, man, I 1:53:39.080 --> 1:53:41.200 love it. People buy your book. 1:53:41.200 --> 1:53:43.120 Well, I don't care if they do. They don't. They 1:53:43.120 --> 1:53:44.360 don't want to know what's going on. 1:53:46.439 --> 1:53:49.840 It's called look a gift horse in the mouth. 1:53:50.160 --> 1:53:53.200 If you want to know what's going on, If you 1:53:53.240 --> 1:53:55.360 want to know everything you want everyone to know about 1:53:55.479 --> 1:54:00.880 past world record muskies. Larry, Why why is an asterisk 1:54:01.040 --> 1:54:01.719 in the title? 1:54:02.560 --> 1:54:05.160 Where's the that's not an asterisk. That's an explanation of 1:54:05.200 --> 1:54:06.240 the word compendium. 1:54:06.920 --> 1:54:10.320 Oh yeah, And then you go to where go down below. 1:54:10.120 --> 1:54:11.720 And explains what a compendium is? 1:54:11.760 --> 1:54:12.080 Okay? 1:54:12.160 --> 1:54:17.480 So a Compendium of Musky Angling History Revised, Updated and expanded, 1:54:17.520 --> 1:54:22.040 third edition, Volume one, Muscle Lunge World Records, the History 1:54:22.880 --> 1:54:23.599 the truth. 1:54:23.840 --> 1:54:25.240 There's the keyword right there. 1:54:26.400 --> 1:54:34.160 Circa nineteen eighteen seventy seventy, two thousand and six. A compendium, 1:54:34.160 --> 1:54:36.680 If you want what the hell that means? A compendium 1:54:36.720 --> 1:54:41.240 gathers together and presents, in a concise or outlined form, 1:54:41.600 --> 1:54:46.640 all the essential facts and details of a subject. Bingle 1:54:47.320 --> 1:54:48.400 by Larry Ramsell. 1:54:49.960 --> 1:54:52.640 You may want to get volume two. There's a real 1:54:52.720 --> 1:54:54.840 important quote here at the back. You know, on the 1:54:54.880 --> 1:54:58.440 back of books how they put quotes from other authors 1:54:58.640 --> 1:55:03.640 or historians are scientific journals and stuff. This one at 1:55:03.640 --> 1:55:08.400 the bottom says, who's that buy me my best work? 1:55:08.480 --> 1:55:13.080 Yeah, Larry, I'm gonna put an asterisk next to this, 1:55:13.120 --> 1:55:15.000 and you're gonna there's gonna be two asterisks next to 1:55:15.080 --> 1:55:17.320 your name and you're gonna go down to that second 1:55:17.400 --> 1:55:21.640 asterisk and it's gonna say a man obsessed pretty much. 1:55:21.720 --> 1:55:25.200 Yeah, Larry Ramsey, that's great. 1:55:25.680 --> 1:55:27.000 Yeah, man pretty much. 1:55:26.920 --> 1:55:29.160 Heavy girlfriend, give me a ring. Next memorial, Man, we're 1:55:29.160 --> 1:55:32.280 gonna mop up on spawning bluegills. Okay, I know about 1:55:32.320 --> 1:55:36.680 a hot bobber bite that we just hit it pretty good. 1:55:36.800 --> 1:55:40.360 She has bowed with muskies. I had to do most 1:55:40.360 --> 1:55:40.600 of the. 1:55:40.560 --> 1:55:44.960 Work, all right, Larry, thanks for coming on. Good luck 1:55:44.960 --> 1:55:48.680 with your continued good luck with your book. And if 1:55:48.720 --> 1:55:51.840 I catch a world record muskie while you're still on Earth, 1:55:51.880 --> 1:55:53.040 I'm just gonna keep my mouth. 1:55:52.840 --> 1:55:56.320 Shut or call me before you speak. 1:55:58.920 --> 1:55:59.920 Thank you very much, Larry. 1:56:00.080 --> 1:56:00.720 Okay, thank you. 1:56:00.760 --> 1:56:01.240 Next word. 1:56:06.320 --> 1:56:11.800 I love fishing loures. I love to cast them while 1:56:11.960 --> 1:56:16.560 I'm drinking a course for while on the rocks, I'm 1:56:16.640 --> 1:56:28.080 drinking adures. Clever, little mechanic, cold words of odd. I 1:56:28.160 --> 1:56:30.280 love fishing lures. 1:56:30.360 --> 1:56:32.080 Got a hot tackle. 1:56:31.720 --> 1:56:36.200 Box of them, with't want any fewer. I bet I'm 1:56:36.240 --> 1:56:37.160 a better. 1:56:36.920 --> 1:56:38.680 Fisher man than you are. 1:56:39.240 --> 1:56:43.240 When I'm at this morning good store, I love loading. 1:56:42.800 --> 1:56:47.400 Up my car. 1:56:47.880 --> 1:56:53.320 Some are striped summer pall and dotted big treble hook. 1:56:53.400 --> 1:56:58.040 Sometimes your line gets noted. Some dive deep, some skinter 1:56:58.160 --> 1:56:59.680 on top of the water. 1:57:00.400 --> 1:57:04.120 Look at that big bass. I'm glad that I caught her. 1:57:04.600 --> 1:57:10.400 Some are monkeys, Some are articulated, some are simple, some 1:57:10.640 --> 1:57:16.480 are complicated. Some of them spin, some of them rattle. 1:57:17.120 --> 1:57:20.720 All kinds of exotic cops as your voting paddle. 1:57:30.320 --> 1:57:32.919 I love fishing, lose. 1:57:33.600 --> 1:57:35.640 Without them in my life. 1:57:35.520 --> 1:57:36.960 I would be poor. 1:57:37.640 --> 1:57:40.720 Some are so effective I think I could catch fishing 1:57:40.880 --> 1:57:47.760 a sewer. Lots of well designed little hats. 1:57:49.320 --> 1:57:57.000 Oh love fishing. LuSE something of joining that professional bass 1:57:57.080 --> 1:58:02.160 fishing tour. Some hundred year old lax, others are newer. 1:58:02.800 --> 1:58:05.640 I love the way. 1:58:05.640 --> 1:58:06.520 They dive in. 1:58:11.360 --> 1:58:16.360 Some are completed, others are spotted. You think I'm missing 1:58:16.400 --> 1:58:20.720 a lure, I've probably got it. Some going back and 1:58:20.760 --> 1:58:23.160 forth like a tea or totter. 1:58:23.680 --> 1:58:25.240 My dog brings me good luck. 1:58:25.720 --> 1:58:27.520 I'm glad I brought her. 1:58:28.040 --> 1:58:32.520 Some are pretty light, others ardwaighted. I want to keep 1:58:32.640 --> 1:58:40.040 casting fishing mores on upbeited fish arlurking in the shadows. 1:58:40.560 --> 1:59:29.880 Gotta lure the mount before my mind gets at Oh. 1:59:30.840 --> 1:59:33.280 I love fishing. 1:59:33.600 --> 1:59:34.680 Loes