Fish Story

From Lake Winnibigoshish to Dirty Nose Lake, Minnesota's fishing resorts were jammed. A rowboat couldn't be had without ah advance reservation; most of them were signed up for the rest of the season. Izaak Waltons from towns like Bemidji, Sleepy Eye and Sauk Center got out their flies and corks, all hell bent to catch one of the 1 ,000 prize fish planted by Minneapolis Radio Station KSTP.

It was the best summer stunt in radio. This week, as the fish contest reached the halfway mark, KSTP was the most talked-about station in the Northwest. Minnesotans tuned in every Friday at 9:15 p.m.

C.S.T. to hear experts on bait and fly-casting, listened'nightly at 10 p.m. to the latest reports on lucky anglers who had hooked an unlucky tagged fish and a consequent prize.

The mayor of New Orleans flew up for a round of casting. Ralph Edwards sent a Truth or Consequences contestant from Hollywood to try his luck.*Amos & Andy wrote a Script around the stunt.

Stanley Hubbard, KSTP's sport-loving president, had hatched the scheme, while itching to get into the woods last spring. He rustled the 1,090 fish (sunfish, bass, walleyed pike, crappies) from the state conservation department. Marked with numbered, metal jaw tags, the fish were planted well before the season opened, on May 15.

From manufacturers and retailers Hubbard, promising heavy plugs on the air, seined some $560,000 in merchandise. Whoever landed a tagged fish would get $560 in prizes: a camp cook stove, camp refrigerator, utility light, aluminum lawn mower, goatskin coat, outboard motor, suit of clothes, a woman's fur coat, two wool blankets and 52 cases of Pepsi-Cola. Another $6,000 in premiums, including a new car and trailer, would go with the first fish tag ending in 00.

The public snapped like a pike at a fly. More fishing permits were issued than ever before (state estimate: a million fishermen this season). The state got valuable fish migration data from reports on prize catches (so far, 132 of the 1,000 tagged have been hooked). Richard Lavesque, nine-year-old polio victim, walked from his home for the first time in two years, took 35-c- worth of equipment to the edge of White Bear Lake, landed a tagged sunfish. War Vet Elmer Hauge poled a pike at Pequot Lakes--its jaw tag was the lucky number 1,000. And I. O. Bane of Deer River, who caught a tagged fish on June 23, returned to the same hole last week and landed another. His present problem: what to do with two batches of prizes, including 104 cases of Pepsi-Cola.

*He failed. But lest he leave the state fishless, Gov. Edward J. Thye (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS) planted a pike in a bathtub on the State House steps.

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