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Te big fsh and beyond beyond Hayward has points of interest for the whole family
STORY AND PHOTOS BY KATHLEEN MURPHY
Is your child into fishing or outdoorsy things? No? Regardless, they will probably still enjoy the Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame and Museum in Hayward. Parents will too, more than likely.
More than just a building that displays fishing rods and taxidermied fish, the museum greets visitors with an enticing parklike setting long before the entrance to the actual museum is reached. The manicured gardens are beautiful, as are the neatly-kept walking paths.
But all of that pales in comparison to the real prize, and the main reason to bring the kids: The Shrine to Anglers. Known across the region as “Big Musky,” the shrine is a giant, lifelike statue of a muskellunge (the fish we more commonly refer to as a musky) leaping out of the water, looking all the more realistic because of its location over an 88,000-gallon pond.
Big Musky is half a city block long and four and a half stories tall. This would be impressive enough if the musky were simply for viewing, but this fish holds a secret: Its fiberglass body holds a hidden staircase that delivers people to a platform inside the musky’s gaping jaw. Once there, the view of Hayward and Lake Hayward can be enjoyed through the spindly teeth of a musky, which is weirdly entertaining even for adults, even more so for kids. Fortunately, the enlarged fiberglass versions aren’t as sharp as the real thing.
During the summer, the pond under the musky is stocked with fish. Kids used to be allowed to cast a pole into the pond and try their hand at fishing, but now the museum has set up a casting range instead, where kids of all ages can grab a pole and see what it takes to hit a target. A playground can be found on the museum grounds, but parents and their kids can also burn off all their restless energy from the car ride by walking the grounds and finding all the “lesser” fiberglass fish statues. They aren’t Big Musky, but they make the museum grounds turn into a treasure hunt.
The museum itself is larger than expected, with so many hidden rooms and surprises that a family could spend a few hours. The Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame is found inside the museum, where any achievement that is related to freshwater sportfishing is recorded and displayed. Kids will enjoy seeing a replica of the largest musky ever caught — a monster at 69 pounds — as well as seeing the records and replicas of the largest fish ever recorded for all of the freshwater species in North America.
