Chapter 1
Fish Stories
Fishing is certainly one of the oldest recreational activities in human history. Following close behind is telling stories about fishing. Through the years “fish stories” have often made the pages of Wisconsin newspapers and magazines.
A Rhinelander-area newspaper, The New North, ran this story in 1912:
The best fish story of the season comes from Three Lakes. The tale was sworn to before a justice of the peace by John Smith, a witness. John Barry, a Chicago banker, was the angler.
Barry was fishing with a small hook for bait. A minnow became fastened on the hook. A one pound black bass spied the minnow and grabbed him whereupon a large “musky” observed Mr. Bass and swallowed hook, minnow, and bass. By careful maneuvering and expert skill Barry landed the finny trio—three fish on one hook.1
Another “multiple-fish” story from Three Lakes, this one in 1965, was reported by the Rhinelander Daily News:
Dale Bruss, new English teacher and assistant basketball coach at the high school here, hooked a 12- or 13-inch northern and landed an 18 pound, five ounce musky instead, Friday.
Bruss was fishing in Range Line Lake and hooked the northern, with a small daredevil, but “everything became a blur” when a musky, evidently chasing the northern, jumped into the boat.
“I dropped my pole and picked up an oar to kill the musky,” said Bruss. He managed to daze the fish long enough to get to shore where he and a neighbor used a gaff hook and gaffed the fish.2
Muskies were often the subjects of northwoods newspaper reports. In 1914 a northern Wisconsin newspaper carried the story with the exciting headline: “Big Fish Swamps Boat: Two Fishermen Nearly Drown While Trying to Land Musky.”
The article went on to describe the perilous event:
While attempting to land a giant muskallonge [sic] Saturday afternoon Leon Gorman and Fred Pecor had a narrow escape from drowning in the Wisconsin River near Rainbow Rapids.
Mesrrs. Gorman and Pecor were trolling in a row boat when the former gentleman hooked the big fish. In the battle which followed the boat tipped over, throwing the occupants into the stream. Both would probably have lost their lives had not a nearby fisherman in another boat hurried to their rescue.3
The musky was lost, but Gorman related that “it was the largest muskallonge [sic] he had ever seen…it looked to him as huge as a shark.”
A big brown trout was the culprit in a near drowning according to a 1937 story in The Wisconsin Sportsman:
A tackle-busting old timer, famous in his home territory—North Branch creek, north of Hixton—gave an angler from Melrose a mighty battle on opening day. This big German brown, nine pounds of dynamite, took a smash at an appetizing something or other, only to find it was attached to a rod. Ire aroused, he proceeded to rip around with fervor. The un-named angler, evidently knowing of this grandaddy trout's past tackle-busting history, doubted his own ability to land the fish according to the usual procedure. So he handed his rod to a companion, plunged into the icy water. Grabbing the struggling trout in his arms with much difficulty, he headed for shore. Extremely irked, Mr. Trout summoned up his strength, gave one more big wriggle, tossing the fisherman backwards into deep water, to nearly drown before he was pulled out by bystanders.4
A fish of a different sort, not usually known for an aggressive nature, was responsible for chasing two young fishermen from their boat, according to another Wisconsin Sportsman report in 1937:
It happened near Oakwood Beach on Lake Winnebago, this genesis of a whopper of a fish story. Harry Mitchell and Robert Kramer, both 14, were rowing along in their boat when a huge fish leaped out of the water and landed in their craft. Startled and confused, both boys leaped from the boat to the comparative safety of the fish's own backyard—the lake. Recovering from their fright, the boys mustered up courage to ease back to the boat to investigate. They found a large carp still floundering around in the bottom of the boat, which they pushed to shore, where they dumped the 12½ pound specimen which soon they were exhibiting with pride. The incident sets some sort of record it is believed.5
A “battling wall-eyed pike” chased a woman not only from her boat but completely off Lake Mendota, according to another report from 1937: “Charging that a battling wall-eyed pike chased her off Lake Mendota after she hit him with an oar, Mrs. Austin Forkner reported that she finally got to the beach, landed the 30-inch specimen with a net.”6
In the days before it was common to see women in the outdoors, stories of angling feats by females often made headlines.
In 1908 the Wausau Daily Record-Herald ran a story with the attention-getting headline: “Killed Big Musky with a Club: And the Slayer Was a Woman, Too, Doing It All Alone.”
The fact that a woman was fishing alone and actually caught a large musky without male assistance was big news back then.
“To say a woman killed a thirty-two pound muscalonge [sic] with a club sounds fishy as a story, but Mrs. M. C. Thorn has the fish at her home at Riverview park on exhibition to prove her story, so it must be accepted, especially since it is told by a fair angler,” the newspaper reported.7
More than thirty years later, women anglers were still making headlines in Wausau.
In 1940 the Daily Record-Herald reported: “Fisherwoman Lands Two Fish at a Time.”
Mrs. William Jahsman…has proved herself a two-fisted angler.
Last Thursday, she was after the big ones in Lake Alice, near Heafford Junction, using two cane poles.
A 20-pound northern pike, which was 40 inches long, hit the bait on one pole, and as Mrs. Jahsman was preparing to haul it in, another northern hit the bait of pole No. 2.
With a bit of maneuvering, Mrs. Jahsman hauled in both of them. The second fish was 25 inches long and weighed 3½ pounds.
For skeptical anglers of the stronger sex, the fish are on display at the Northland Sporting Goods store.8
In more recent times there was an ongoing rumor about a monster musky haunting the waters of Lake Minocqua, according to the local papers during the summer of 1977.
“The rumor around Minocqua area this week is of a fish that took five hours to fight, but still got away,” reported Ed Wodalski of Rhinelander Daily News. A local sporting goods dealer told Wodalski, “There have been other sightings of a large musky in the area that could go over 100 pounds, but more reasonable estimates might be 60 pounds, not 100 pounds. That sounds pretty fishy.”9
Several weeks later, some thought they had the explanation.
“The monster muskie controversy in Minocqua Lake has had some new light shed on it this past week,” Wodalski reported. “It appears that the fish may not have been a muskie at all but rather a lake sturgeon.”10
Fish stories, whether true, half true, or bonafide “whoppers,” have kept us intrigued and entertained for decades. The Wisconsin fishing experience just wouldn't be the same without these tales of courage, drama, and amazement that come from our lakes and rivers. Heard a good one lately?