Was it record or fish story?

The fish weighed 69 pounds, 11 ounces, the hall of fame says.
Knight Ridder Newspapers
HAYWARD, Wis. -- Louis Spray's world muskellunge record still stands, but not without some anglers hanging a dreaded asterisk next to his name.
In a drama played out in this northern fishing town, the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame announced Monday it wouldn't throw out Spray's world record for a 69-pound, 11-ounce muskie that he caught near here in the Chippewa Flowage more than a half-century ago.
Emmett Brown, the hall's executive director, said an Illinois group, the World Record Muskie Alliance, didn't provide enough conclusive evidence to cast Spray's fish -- named "Chin-Whiskered Charlie" -- aside.
Brown said the hall's board of directors voted 8-0 to keep the record, with two members abstaining because one was a local guide and another, John Dettloff, the hall's president, wrote a book about Spray.
"We feel in many ways, it's been further validated by our own investigation," said Brown.
Keeper of records
One of the nation's keepers of fishing records, the Fishing Hall of Fame is located on the outskirts of this town whose reputation for producing world-record muskies is a source of pride. But that reputation was questioned again Monday by some local anglers.
"To this day, nobody really believes Spray's fish except for John Dettloff and eight other people in Hayward," said Pete Maina, a Hayward guide.
Spray, who died in 1982, lived in Hayward and nearby Rice Lake. He was a local bootlegger, tavern owner and legendary angler who -- like Babe Ruth pointing to the outfield stands -- audaciously predicted he would catch the world record muskie three months before he caught his monster fish in 1949.
Because the mount of Spray's world-record muskie was destroyed in a fire in 1959, today's anglers have only old photographs and sworn affidavits by those who saw and weighed the fish as evidence of the fish's veracity.
The World Record Muskie Alliance, of Woodstock, Ill., based its protest of the Spray fish on historic photos of Spray, whose known height was around 6 feet, standing next to the fish. The group contends the fish was only 54 inches long, not 631/2 as Spray claimed.
Lacked information
But Brown said that same photo analysis, conducted by a Canadian company, lacked key pieces of information to reach any conclusions.
"Quite frankly, it was bad science," Brown said of the group's research.
In a dramatic demonstration Monday, Brown also used bags of ice to dispute claims that Spray stuffed the fish with ice or other materials to make it weigh as much as it did.
Brown lined up four 5-pound bags of ice next to a mounted 54-inch muskie to show the difficulty of putting 20 pounds of ice into a muskie. The bags of ice were nearly as large as the fish during Brown's demonstration.
"This would be impossible to do," Brown said of the purported ice-stuffing.
Brown pointed to other evidence supporting Spray's fish, including reports from two mathematicians, one at Bemidji State University and the other at Columbia University in New York, suggesting the fish was, indeed, about 63 inches.
But Rich Delaney, a teacher from Oak Park, Ill., and president of the World Record Muskie Alliance, said he can further refute Brown's arguments. He also said the Hall of Fame and its board of directors -- all from Hayward -- have a vested interest in keeping the world record nearby.
"On the surface, it has the appearance of the fox guarding the henhouse," Delaney said.