New York State muskellunge record

[Stinky Finger]

We all know the story- in September of 1957 Art Lawton is reputed to have caught a muskellunge in the St Lawrence river, vicinity of Clayton N.Y. that is said to have weighed 69 lbs 15 ozs, one ounce shy of 70 lbs.

No small amount of controversy surrounds this catch. It held the slot as all tackle world record muskie for decades until its fall from grace and being stricken from the records of the world fish record governing bodies, both the International Game Fish Association and the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame.

The State of New York still recognizes this catch as the official state record.

Do you think it should be tossed and the next heaviest muskie which can pass scrutiny and be positively verified, documented, certified, etc. be handed the crown ???

[zach]

I am not even sure if we have a state record musky anymore w/ the way the records are being thrown out all the time. The only way that a new record will be accepted is if someone KILLS a huge fish and it is verified by tons of people and even then people will have issues w/ it. I fully understand the importance of releasing muskies but a "catch and release" record leaves so much in doubt. IMO someone has to KILL a huge fish and have it certified, sad but true.

[NitroMusky]

Throw out that record and you start a whole new round of kills, starting out rather small and gradually increasing in size, which will also include some which people guess might have a chance at the beating the record at the time (who don't have the correct equipment on the boat) and are proven otherwise on shore.

Let the record stand...once a record is recognized, the burden of proof is on the naysayers to disprove it with incontrovertible evidence. Sounds like a game of he said-she said with the Lawton fish based on what i've read, and being so far in the past, new incontrovertible evidence is unlikely to emerge. Someone has to beat that mark IMHO.

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[Glenn -Brazee]

Here is something you Musky hunters should check out. What a Monster catch!

http://www.abay.com/alexandriabaynynews1847.htm

[Stinky Finger]

I certainly don't want to see "a whole new round of kills", especially on the Larry which has made an amazing comeback from where it was in recent decades.

The big girls are back it seems and the last thing I want to see is a repeat of the horrifying "Hank's top twenty" days on the Niagara where I walked past a dumpster once at Aqua lane and there must have been two dozen dead muskies unceremoniously tossed in there, stench and flies swirling around. Disgusting senseless loss.

There must of course be records in existence, perhaps in the Genesee beer contests or Field & Stream which are close to the Lawton mark yet bearing enough legitimacy to finally warrant dumping the Lawton fish -which most in the muskie fishing world feel is bogus- and awarding the laurels where they are truly due.

If the Lawton fish IS bogus, which is the most plausible assessment arrived at by many who actually know what they are talking about professionally in ascertaining the evidence then that can only mean that some one who deserves the recognition has been gypped all these years.

With the implementation of higher size limits in recent years (thank God) such as the 54" mark for Lake Erie I very seriously doubt that a string of dead fish is in the offing. In fact I have not heard of a single kept muskie from Erie since the higher limit was set. There are very very few fish of that caliber encountered and very few anglers are on the water in the late season when the largest fish are caught.

Raise the limit. Is the current size limit on the St. Lawrence enough? I say bump it up to 60".

I am not for "wiping the slate clean" and starting from scratch because that of course would see a slaughter unfold.

I am for tossing the Lawton fish for the next record verifiable which no doubt exists, it simply has to be determined, the who, when, where it was and give credit where it is due and in so doing remove the fetid aroma surrounding the current record.

[NitroMusky]

What we need is for someone to catch a true 70 pounder. Short of that would be to wipe the slate clean and start over going forward. If that were to happen (it never will because NYS did not find the Lawton evidence incontrovertible), I agree that the largest on record be found and use that as a starting point for considering a 'new' record catch.

However I respectfully disagree with the idea of installing a prior catch as the record. It would be mired in an illegitimacy of it's own, which does not get us out of the current dilemma. Namely, there may have been other, larger catches which were never correctly verified, submitted, or even kept because the angler knew the fish didn't surpass the 70lb mark (correctly verified per NYS regs is likely a particular issue with most of these private contests/records). Can't replay history so anything installed as the record would always have a big * next it's name too.

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[Believer]

Keep the New York State record where it is. The discrediting of Arthur Lawton's fish, decades after it went in the books was itself not credible. Unless someone could examine the actual fish, weigh it, and say it did not wiegh 69 pounds, 15 ounces, why should we disbelieve what was once measured and recorded. I think the discrediting thing was done to put the record somewhere else. In his memoir, Before I Forget, St. Lawrence River angler Len Hartman said--if I remember correctly--that the Lawton fish was taken to Albany for weighing. Can anyone say it wasn't? Is it sound to argue that an angler as serious as Lawton was would cheat on a fish's weight to get his name in a record book? I don't think so.

[BP Swing]

The fact that the national freshwater fishing hall of fame discredited the Lawton fish means ABSOLUTELY nothing. Their MO is to make sure the record stayed in Wisconsin (AKA Louie Sprays fish). When they did that, I immediately cancelled my membership to the NFFHF in protest. The musky world doesnt want the record in NY for some reason. The Larry still rules!

P.S Here is a photo of the Lawton fish from a newspaper clipping my grandfather gave me when I was a kid

http://bpspinners.com/coolfishingstuff.html

and dont forget about this caught by Dale McNair in 2008 which supposedly weighed 70 and released. The interview is below it too.

http://bpspinners.com/morecoolfishingstuff.html

[Ronix 51]

i say keep the record as is just to avoid what nitro was talking about...no one should have to kill a fish especially of that size just to have their name written in a book especially in waters where the muskie population has taken such a big hit recently. you want a record go to wisconsin or minnesota and try and get a WORLD record from waters where the populations are doing well (even then I think the fish should be released) These monster beauties are just too important for the sake of spawning to take them from the waters.

[Ronix 51]

if it were up to me id give the record to dale macnair just bc he was that much of a sportsman to release such a beautiful monster. thats a class act right there

[BP Swing]

Why is it all muskies arent mandatory catch & release? Better than the original graphite mounts are available. This would eliminate any bozos keeping muskies they thought were Pike. They are not table fare anyways, wonder why the DEC doesnt support that but the 54" rule on Erie?

[zach]

LOL, look at Waneta's 36" size limit. People kill fish there all the time! I know Waneta isn't a trophy lake but it has the same musky strain as Chautauqua does and at Chautauqua they have a higher size limit. I fully do not understand this 36" size limit on such a small lake. Good talk though boys.

[BP Swing]

Seriously....36" is a joke and really an insult to the fish and fishermen. DEC should change that immediately. WTF

[Stinky Finger]

I hear ya Zack. Been wondering about the size limits (lack thereof) for years.

Granted, the Chautauqua strain lacks the size potential of the great lakes strain but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have better protection, especially in light of the fact that muskies do not mature and spawn for the first time until they are 5 to 7 years old and their first year of spawning is often unsuccesfull (Crossman).

If a 36" Waneta female is kept she likely has not spawned even once.

If the state subscribes to the notion that the Pendergast hatchery and its Chautauqua muskies are no different than its other hatcheries producing trout and long standing annual tradition of "put and take" fishing with crowds of people chasing the hatchery trucks, it needs to stop. Muskellunge (native species, BTW) are not rainbow or brown trout (both non native species).

I subscribe to the Dr. Bernard LeBeau school of thought, that we have two species of muskie, not just one. The Chautauqua or lucastrine sub species and the great lakes or riverine sub species (LeBeau, doctoral thesis).

My Great Uncle Warren (1900-1994) spent his whole life on Chautauqua, was a muskie fanatic and fished it hard up to the 70's when his health prevented it. His best was 53" which says a lot about Chautauqua, that's about as big as they get. He had literally dozens upon dozens 48" or better but they seem to top right off at 50" and anything past that is a rarity indeed.

I would love to see the statewide size limit upped to something like 44" and the great lakes limit set at 60".

[BP Swing]

Mandatory C & R and 60" limits sound great and Im all for it but one problem......what do you do when a monster goes belly up after a release like what happened with the recent 59"? Do you just let it float away? I myself cant answer that dilema. BTW I wonder how old that fish was that didnt make it.... 20-25 yrs? Sad

[Stinky Finger]

The same topic came up at a Chautauqua Musky Hunters meeting about what to do with a sub limit fish that fails to revive and the DEC officer there answered that one- leave it for the birds.

If the limit is 40" you can't keep a 39".

A 44" limit in the statewide regulations would cover all of the Chautauqua strain 'skis wherever they are now found in the state, Chautauqua, Bear, Waneta/Lamoka, Cassadaga, southern tier rivers and creeks and also the Great Chazy and Champlain and ensure a better fishery which would be more self sustaining.

A 60" limit on great lakes fish would effectively place them into a catch, photo & release status, just a notch below sturgeon which are a no-no and cannot be removed from the water for a photo.

"Throwing back" a belly up 53" fish on Lake Erie would be heartbreaking but limits is limits and them's the rules and in the long run the higher limits are ensuring the existence of a great number of fish that otherwise might be in some yahoo's frying pan.

BTW, almost forgot- Dr. Casselman at a NMA meeting said he studied the O'Brian fish from the Moon river (65 lbs Canadian record) and determined the fish to be in its thirtieth year when harvested.

[Stinky Finger]

Anyway, getting away from the topic- this was about the New York State record.

the 69 lb 15 oz Lawton fish used to be the world record and still recognized only by the state of New York, everyone else has dropped it. After being run through the scrutiny mill ad nauseum it was found to be murky enough to be removed from every record list in existence save for New York's state record list.

Outside of New York nobody believes in this fish anymore.

Back in the day the record keeping bodies were Field & Stream magazine and the Genesee Beer annual fishing contests, the pet of brewery superintendent Louis Wehle. Both offered cash prizes for winning entries.

Quite a string of entries in the muskellunge division for both record keeping bodies were made by Len & Betty Hartmann and by Art & Ruth Lawton. The winning entries went back and forth between the Lawtons and the Hartmanns for several years, that alone should have raised flags.

In Len Hartmann's own words during an interview (Ramsell?) he states that fish were routinely padded with wet sand down their gullets to increase their weights prior to being weighed on scales, he implicates Lawton for doing the same. "We did it for the money, like beach bums who would rather surf than work we would do whatever it took for money in order to fish and not work a steady job". "We didn't care about the world record, we wanted the prize check".

At least one photograph of Hartmann has been widely circulated showing Hartmann holding a fish reputed to be 65 lbs, later proven to be in the 40 lb class when it was revealed to be a fish caught not by Hartmann at all but by Cubby Kiah of Alexandria bay.

Another of Hatmann's capers was passing off a pike as a muskie to a client while guiding. "Two clients came up from New Jersey to catch muskie. One caught a pike and later a muskie. He asked me why they looked different, I said one was male, the other a female" Hartmann pocketed a nice tip and the anglers went home to Jersey unaware.

Apparently he would bend the truth on a regular basis to make money off of fish and he openly admitted to doing so in interviews. All of Len's and Betty's fish should be tossed out.

The June/July issue of Musky Hunter magazine has an article by John Dettloff on several of the Lawton fish with photographs, very similar to the pic submitted above from a newspaper clipping in '57 showing the 69 lb 15 oz world record. It shows the same pole with several Lawton muskies in Oct. '60 in the same yard displayed exactly as the '57 photo. The Lawtons regularly displayed their multiple catches hung on this pole and several such photos exist. The world however did not know of many these photos until Dettloff launched his vendetta to discrecit Lawton and obtained many photos from Lawton's daughter who was furious after the scandal broke. Apparently Mr. Dettloff told her one thing to get his hands on the pics and did another once he had them.

The problem with the photos is they show the truth, these fish are nowhere near the sizes claimed by the Lawtons and like the Hartmann catches were regularly submitted to Field & Stream and Genesee for the prize money that was up for grabs.

Dettloff may be a bottom feeder but he exposed the truth about the Lawtons.

Dettloff went on and on over the course of several issues of Musky Hunter defending the Wisconsin fish which became the default world record once the Lawton fish was discredited and the angler who caught it, Louis Spray, a shady character by many accounts who was recognized for three world record muskies over the years. Of course Dettloff cannot claim to be unbiased as his efforts were on behalf of the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame for whom he worked, located in Hayward Wisconsin on the Chippewa Flowage, the lake where Spray claimed to catch his fish and the very same lake where coincidentally Dettloff just happens to own a fishing resort and guide service. Dettloff also just happens to have written a book about Spray ( I wouldn't be surprised he if had a life sized velvet Elvis of Spray in his living room surrounded by candles, kinda creepy infatuation). The Spray records, along with others from Wisconsin have been discredited since then by the IGFA and others. But I digress, those were world records and this is about the New York State record and so here we still are- with the Lawton fish, a joke anywhere but New York.

It should be tossed and any Hartmann fish that may result by default should as well be tossed.

I doubt this would result in the Governor ordering flags to half staff and giving all the kiddies a day off of school in mourning as may be the case in Wisconsin.