I've personally been fishing since around 2000 and don't have enough years on the water to know whether or not fishing is better or worse nowadays.
I hear stories....I see pictures....but I truly wonder, was the fishing better back when, or is it better now? Or, is it about the same? Why do you say/think so? Chime in!!!
Just some info on record walleye in Wisconsin. Back in the 70's or 80's, a fishing guide in Vilas county almost had a new walleye record supposedly caught , i think on Star Lake, the DNR had certified it and everything, but someone turned him in for buying the fish from a native american tribe member. He was busted and lost his guide buisnes for two years. High lake is very small and relatively shallow. I find it hard to believe it produced the record.
I find the discussion on old records a little interesting... perhaps that walleye was 18lbs 1 oz, but they just rounded, not knowing that 60 years later someone would be questioning the veracity of their fish or expected a new record to be caught... and maybe it was easier to catch a WORLD RECORD or STATE RECORD when there wasn't folks harvesting fish with better techniques and tools? I dunno, and I probably should have just chuckled to myself, but what the heck, my 2 cents
That is another good example. I remember seeing that and thinking there was no way it was legit. Really, any record before 1980 or so should be viewed with skepticism. Now days they check them pretty well (DNR biologist has to view and verify, they make sure no lead is in the gut, etc...), but any record before modern times I am very skeptical of.
Back then, you just needed an eye witness and a certified scale. So you could easily get a friend that worked at a place with a certified scale to BS.
Channel cat record is another I am skeptical of. A 44 lb (again, 44 lb on the dot) channel cat being caught this far north seems pretty unlikely. Especially since it was on the Wisconsin river and not the Mississippi where it could've theoretically came from down south
Great Discussion!!! Speaking of records, and the possibility of false record keeping. I have always been fathomed by the current Wisconsin State Record Walleye. Which is held by Tony Brothers. He caught the fish on High Lake in Vilas County on September 16th 1933, at 18 lbs.
Now I don't want to discredit Mr. Brothers but I just have a hard time believing that Walleye was truly that big.
#1 For instance, High lake comes in at 741 acres and I am assuming it did not have a cisco population at that time. That is an extremely small body of water compared to the bodies of water that Minnesota's and Michigan's state records came from.
#2 Minnesota's state record is 17 lbs 8 oz and came in 1979 from a 13,000 acre, 280 ft deep Saganaga lake.
#3 Michigan's state record came from a river that runs from out of lake Michigan and that fish weighed in at 17.19 lbs in 1951.
#4 Tony Brother's Walleye came in at an "even" 18 lbs.
#5 There is literally no record, picture or article of Tony Brother's Walleye let alone even Tony Brothers!!! I have done research on Tony Brother's walleye and have even asked lake link member's if anyone ever heard of Tony Brother's walleye and received 0 response.
#6 The fish was caught in the heart of the great depression. It was not unheard of resort owners making outlandish claims of sorts to bring prospective vacationers to their resort. I am assuming due to the lack of good roads and such that Mr. Brother's was staying at a resort that was located on the lake.
#7 The bay of Green Bay with it's outstanding forage base cannot and has not beaten that record of 18#. Also, look at the dates caught. This is not a Walleye that is full of spawn which could of been the case with the MN state walleye which was caught May 13th 1979 along the MN/Canadian border where spawning is later than WI and that fish may still have been full of eggs. The Michigan State Walleye record only gives a year (1951) but not an actual date. Mr. Brother's walleye caught in mid September was caught at a time in it's yearly cycle when it technically would not be at it's heaviest. Which would be mid November or possibly early spring.
I don't want to discredit Mr. Brother's as I have never met the man and assuming he is no longer alive. However, a little hindsight, common sense and a little science would say that an 18 lb walleye maynot be 18 lbs. I could be, and hopefully I am wrong, but something tells me there's a fish tale in there if you know what I mean.
If anyone knows anything about Mr. Brother's and that Walleye please speak up as I and I think others would love to hear it.
I have to believe there is an absolute bruiser following trout in the depths of Lake Michigan that seldom goes shallow. The next record musky will be caught by a trout fisherman using down riggers.
My last hope for a legit older record was the Malo fish. That fish seemed bigger than Sprays or Cal Johnson's fish. I think the size of the Malo fish has since been proven bogus as well.
I've got a few trips setup here at the end of the month.... :)
I think my pops had a record of sorts on once... He was throwing a small bucktail off of the deep side of the boat. Probably casting into 22 feet of water and bringing it back to 14 feet of water. He hooked onto something. Rod bent over and he couldn't move it. He gave me the rod, I got over the "snag" with the trolling motor and started moving it up the water column hand over hand on the line. All of a sudden I saw what looked like the inside of a 5 gallon pail down about 8 feet in the water and the bait came flying up at me. I never saw fish, but I saw a lot of white. I also never felt the head shake of a fish, just dead weight.
I don't know what was on there, but it was no stump.
I didn't really tell pops anything about what I saw, just that the snag let loose. I'm still not exactly sure what I saw.
Fun times.
I like npike's post too....
I'm a lot more partial to the musky side of things than bass. Just cuz I'm more of a musky guy. And that World Record is something that I personally hold in high esteem.
I too am not a Ramsell fan. Also not an opponent. I think that he and his followers are just trying to get to the truth about what some perceive to be the Holy Grail of fishing. The more that I've read and the more that I've seen, the more I believe that claims surrounding those fish are false.
But..it shouldn't matter much longer. There are records swimming in waters right now. Sooner or later one will be caught.
"Machoprogrammer- why should the lmb record be discredited? The one caught in Japan was a tie. And a bigger fish was caught in California but foul hooked."
From what I read, both the smallmouth and largemouth bass record are a bit sketchy. Largemouth less than smallmouth, but the largemouth record came from Georgia and there hasn't been a fish caught within 4 lb of that record in Georgia. Then again, it was certified at a post office, so could be legit.
The smallmouth record is more sketchy, since no fish, anywhere, has come within a lb of it.
Record keeping and verification back then was a lot more lax than today's standards, so any record before 1980 or so should be viewed with skepticism
It's simply too late to know for sure. Even if some believe there is solid photo evidence to disprove the claim of a 69 pound plus fish, others could question people's conclusions on that evidence, or look at the evidence in a different way.
It's kind of like the Lochness Monster. Some people claim to have seen it. I don't know that we could ever produce a link that for sure disproves their claim. So, even if Spray's fish were fake, I don't know that we could 100 percent disprove it at this point. Not trying to be sarcastic. I say that with respect to all the posts below....Hope that makes sense.
Another way to ask is "How can we absolutely prove that it was a 69 plus pound fish and nothing was inserted/added to the fish before it was weighed...." That too, is probably impossible to prove/disprove at this point of the game.
It comes down to what each of us truly believe about the fish and the facts and happenings around that fish. I guess my original point was that if these four huge fish were caught in that 10 year span....and not much has come close since...then muskie fishing, at least, is not better now, but was MUCH better back in the day. Because, if 60 plus pound fish were truly caught in that era, then a bunch of 40 and 50 pound fish were likely caught too, and even though I see huge muskies caught today in Wisconsin, I don't see 40 and 50 pound fish very often....does anybody else? I tend to view the 4 muskie records during that time with skepticism, but I'm certainly not sure one way or another. But, at lot more people fish now. There is more knowledge. Trolling....Catch and release...you would think things have improved, or, at worst, held serve and stayed very similar as far as big fish potential. Those are my reasons to be skeptical. But, I can't prove it's real or fake. Others have good reasons why they believe the four record fish are indeed the exact weight as stated ... All four of those were very big fish...that I can say for sure. Impressive catches for sure!
I guess it doesn't matter in the big picture of life a whole lot, but, I think one thing most of us like to believe is that a record is a record and we got things right along the way in determining that it's a record. That's why there is debate....and will continue to be debate. It's like in sports. If a team wins on a bad call, there is just something that doesn't feel quite right. Especially in a huge championship game. In fishing, the biggest fish ever caught is somewhat comparable to the Super Bowl of fishing.
