Arnold casts new angle on fishing record

Doug Arnold, director of the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), has been called in to help settle a long-running dispute over whether a muskie caught in Wisconsin is really a world record. The National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame asked Arnold to conduct a mathematical analysis of a 56-year-old photograph of angler Louis Spray holding Chin-Whiskered Charlie, a world-class muskellunge (or muskie) he caught in 1949. Photographs and a life-size replica of the fish are the only remaining pieces of evidence to support the Hall of Fame's claim that the catch is the world freshwater record. The mounted fish itself was destroyed in a fire in 1959, so Arnold used projective geometry to weigh in on the controversy.