Oct. 20, 1949, Louis Spray caught an enormous muskie in the Chippewa Flowage. The fish weighed 69 pounds, 11 ounces, and was 5 feet, 3 ½ inches long.

How and Where the Musky Was caught

Louie caught the big musky late in the afternoon, on the first day of a cold front. During the week or so before he caught it the weather had been warm and on October 20th the weather took a turn for the worse… a classic time to catch a big musky. Louie was fishing with an “off-duty” guide named George Quentmeyer and Ted Hagg, who owned the Sarona House (a popular restaurant and nite club in Sarona). Quentmeyer was the owner of Callahan Lake Resort.

Spray was casting a harnessed sucker near a log jam that was just down the shoreline to the northwest of the site of the old Catholic mission Church on Graveyard Point (where Old Post was located). Louie tied into the fish and Hagg was excited and yelling and standing up in the boat because of the big fish. Quentmeyer told Hagg to sit down or else he would clout him with an oar. The trio thought the fish would go 80#!!!

Louie got the fish near the boat and Quentmeyer shot the fish twice. Spray and his friends were witnessed catching the fish there by the regulars at Indian Trail, who heard the commotion across the lake.

An Indian guide named Hank Smith had his client raise the fish sometime before that. It followed to the boat and was nearly half as long as the boat so the frightened client put his rod down and demanded that Smith take him in. The man wanted nothing to do with a fish that huge!

The fish was brought in to Hermans Landing and Leonard Dorazio was one of the first on the scene to witness the fish hanging from a boat lift or something. The muskie was as long as Dorazio was tall.

Louis Spray World Record Musky
Louis Spray World Record Musky
Louis Spray poses with the largest of three record-breaking muskies he caught
Louis Spray poses with the largest of three record-breaking muskies he caught
Bil Baumgarten Shooting a Musky
Above Photo NOT Louis Spray


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