What A Crappie Record

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State's record crappie is a fish tale hard to prove
DOUG SMITH
Star Tribune of Minneapolis
RED WING, Minn. - For nearly seven decades, the huge 5-pound state record crappie has been a fishing rarity: A lunker without a tale. Until now.

Since 1940, Minnesota's record black crappie has been listed as the eye-popping 5-pound slab caught in the Vermillion River backwaters near Red Wing by a guy named Tom Christensen.

That the record has stood for 66 years is testament to the enormity of the fish. A 5-pound crappie is almost unimaginable today, when crappies average 6 or 8 inches and a 3-pounder would be a catch of a lifetime.

Because it's one of the oldest fish records in the state, it also is one of the least scrutinized. Little is known about it, and less has been written about it.

The Department of Natural Resources, which keeps the official records, has almost no information about Christensen's mammoth crappie other than the weight, length (21 inches) and year it was caught.

Other details that would confirm the catch - including witnesses, faded newspaper clippings, photographs or a mount of the actual fish - appear to have been lost to time. Christensen, a die-hard angler and cement finisher, died at age 65 in 1963.

Over the decades, doubt has crept in as some anglers and even DNR fisheries biologists, wondered whether Minnesota could ever have produced a 5-pound crappie.

But the record-buster appears to be no tall fish tale.

Alan Novek has absolutely no doubt that his grandfather caught the 5-pound record-setter in the Vermillion's backwaters near where the river spills into the Mississippi River just north of Red Wing.

"There's no question whatsoever; it was the real deal," said Novek, 58, who lives in Frontenac.

The famous catch was well-known in the family, and Novek has a replica of the crappie made by a man who got the measurements from a Cannon Falls taxidermist who Novek believes once possessed the actual fish.

Mildred Huddleston, 79, of Red Wing, is one of Christensen's daughters. She, too, has no doubt that her dad caught the 5-pound crappie.

"I was just 13 when he caught the fish," she recalled this week.

"Back then, a fish was a fish. He knew it was a big one. But Dad never talked much about it. Back in those days, there were lots of big fish. It was nothing to catch an 8- or 8.5-pound walleye. No one thought anything of it."

And there was little fame or fortune linked to a record fish, as there is today.

"He was going to put it in the frying pan," Novek said. "People said no, no, no, you can't do that."

The family had no camera and no freezer, just an ice box, Huddleston said. They sold bait out of their home for extra cash.

The story is that Christensen or a friend gave the giant crappie to a taxidermist to have it mounted, "and he never got it back," Novek said.

Efforts to retrieve the fish over the years failed, the family said.

There is other evidence that supports the catch: A DNR conservation officer - Paul Nordeen, now also deceased - was a friend of Christensen's and apparently weighed and measured the fish.

Also, Jenifer Matthees, who keeps track of fish records for the DNR, said she recently received a call from an old-timer who said he was there fishing that day in 1940 when Christensen caught his fish.

"He had a vivid memory of it and said they were fishing through the ice when he caught it," Matthees said.

Novek also possesses a real mounted crappie that, according to the handwriting on the back of the mount, weighed 4.5 pounds and also was caught in those same Vermillion River backwaters in June 1940, less than six months before Christensen caught his 5-pounder.

"It used to be a hotbed for crappies," Novek said.

Huddleston pulled out a yellowed newspaper clipping from the March 22, 1970, edition of the weekly Outdoor News showing a 5-year-old youngster holding her dad's 5-pound crappie.

The caption said the fish was 18 3/4 inches long (not 21 inches, as the DNR records indicate) and had a girth of 19 inches. It said Cannon Falls taxidermist Russ Awsumb "restored" the fish, which was displayed that year at the Northwest Sportshow.

Cliff Awsumb, now 41 and living in Ramsey, was the tyke in the photo. His grandfather died in 1973. Awsumb still has the giant crappie hanging on his wall, but says it's a replica of the original.

"The way my grandfather made fish was he took the actual fish and put it in plaster to make a mold, then he used fiberglass."

He doesn't know if his grandfather had the original fish, or what happened to it. But Awsumb, too, has no doubts that the 5-pound crappie was real.

The actual fish, which Christensen's family would love to recover, might be long gone.

Cliff Awsumb's mother, Carol Blaisdell, said she believes Russ Awsumb might have cut the fins off fish when he made molds, meaning the original fish could have been destroyed in the process.

Which means Alan Novek might have to be satisfied with the replica he possesses.

Regardless, he thinks his grandfather's record will be tough to break. What are the odds of someone catching a 5-pound crappie today?

"Slim to none," said Novek with a smile.