Went for Lakers, Caught Walleye and Whitefish

The weather being what it is I decided I better go fishing. I had it in my mind to go for herring again, so I drove my wife to work, loaded up my son and the boat and hit the road. Rolling down the road, about to hit the road to the Herring lake, and my son asks, “where are we going?”. I reply with “@&$&@$ Lake”. He is instantly dissatisfied and says “I don’t want to go fishing for herring again….I want to go fish on the lake where Mommy works!”.

He was nice enough to keep me company so I obliged and off to mommy lake we go. At least Mommy’s lake is open all year for Lake Trout and has decent walleye fishery. Ok we make a left instead of a right and off to Mommy’s lake. Get to the launch and a couple other bass boats had been there before me and were all clear off the launch so right in I go. Water is up, current at the launch wasn’t too bad though. Down the river and into the lake for 11am. Water like glass. My son insisted on going bareback it was so hot in the sun. Pull up to a 45ft point and putt around looking for fish… looks like the bass boats we targeting the reeds, I stayed deep and marked a pile of fish in bottom, 55fow. Set my spot lock and down goes the vibrato. Reached bottom, pickup slack, boom! Fish on! Holy moly it’s heavy! Fight the fish to the surface, my son nets it, 24” Walleye… nice! Toss it in the livewell and throw my lure back down, another instant hookup on bottom…. Nice 25” walleye, let this one go it was THICK. Drop the line back down, still fish on the graph, SLAM! Instant fish on as soon as it reaches bottom… this one’s fight is different, more thumping and a nice big run half way up, I think for sure this one’s a laker….. nooope. Beautiful whitefish at 24”! Nice! Holy heck the bottom is still lit up! Toss it back down… smash!! Holy crap! Another thumper, this one comes off about half way up, so I let my line back down and see another fish coming skyrocket up off bottom… smash! Geee whiz another 21” walleye! Toss that one in the well…. Check the time, it’s only 11:25…. Wow…. Throw the line back down… and finally get 5 minutes to catch my breath and make sense of wHat just happened. 5 min lull is over, bottom is lit up again… and fish on! Another 23” walleye, released. Back down again, and another fish right away…. Another 24” walleye!!! Holy crap this amazing! Released as my son and I already have our 2 fish over 18”… he says dad I want to catch one…. As he says it I already have another fish on my line! I let him fight the fish and I netted it for him, a beautiful 22” walleye, his first nice walleye! Prompt release… he said he has had enough fishing now lol… we continued to slam the walleye until just after noon and they stopped hitting. What an hour. Wow. Ended up with 3 walleye in the livewell, 18”,21”,24”. And one big whitefish 24”. We tried to find them again but fish marked would not longer bite… bite window was over. Off the water and home by 1:30. That was the best mid day walleye bite I have ever experienced in one hour…. The shear quality of fish was astounding. What a life. I didn’t catch one laker and couldn’t care less hahaha.

Walleye were packed full of Smelts.

Tight lines all!

Great fishing for sure. Oh by the way where does Mommy work. LOL

WOW, great fishing, and details.

Thanks! She works at the clearing to the right of me in the picture.

Fantastic report, enjoyed it a lot

Nice report. When catching walleye deep this time of year the pressure can kill them. Even though they may swim away the damage is internal. Over 35ft is hard on them. Be careful how you word your report also with fish limits. If a CO read this report you would be in trouble.

Yeah---such a disappointing day---no lakers, eh? Life's real tough sometimes

Oh I totally agree, after the first one I immediately slowed my retrieve for the others, I ran into this problem in the winter as well. My son being with me I have no worries with limits. After we had two in the well over 18.1” they were all released other than the one that was a smidge bellow 18. One thing that’s really important is to handle them very gently as well, this can prevent the air bladder popping out before release. An unfortunate side affect of deep fishing for walleye absolutely. When the walleye are chomping the deep smelts it’s inevitable.

I meant you can't catch 2 over 18 inches and keep both. Your son has to catch it then you can keep it. Your son would have to catch one of the over 18 inches in the livewell. Can't party fish. Your limits are separate. If a CO asked who caught what you would be in trouble.

Appreciate what you’re trying to say, I’ll agree it’s a technical point. In my experience, after a dozen encounters and conversation with different CO, I’m not worried in the least. That’s not to say someone else won’t get popped for this by an eager CO, so everyone make sure you’re following the rules.

Great fishing trip.

As far as Barrow trauma you can not reel slow enough to minimize it. Divers know this and a safety stop takes 15 minutes. You would have to hang each fish down 15’ for 15 minutes to minimize barrow trauma. Reeling in slow is worse for the fish as it becomes exhausted and does not have the energy to swim back down while fighting the swollen swim bladder.
The only study I have ever read with the best chances of minimizing impact from Barrow trauma outlined the best practice to be the following.
Reel in the fish as quickly as possible
Unhook quickly as possible
The fish that experience the least amount of time with bloated swim bladders have the best chance of recovery. The fish landed quickly have to most energy to fight back down to depth to compress and relieve barrow trauma from bloating swim bladders.
A descending device speeds up this process even further benefiting the fish.

https://gf.nd.gov/fishing/barotrauma

“ I’ve read that reeling in a fish really slowly can help. Is that true?

In most cases, no. Some fish species, like salmon, pike or catfish, have a pneumatic duct that they can use to release, or “burp,” gases from their swim bladder.

But many species in North Dakota, like walleye, perch and bass, do not have this duct.

They regulate gases in their swim bladder through their bloodstream, which takes quite a long time.

So when most anglers consider reeling a fish in slowly (say 3-5 minutes) to allow them to release gas from their swim bladder, it’s not nearly slow enough to be effective (more like 20-30 minutes).”

This is great info Disco… for the info not for the fish I caught. It was amazing fishing and I wish they were the stocker trout I was targeting. On other lakes I was getting bass at those depths so I didn’t even rethink twice. It’s unfortunate to think I sent all those fish to their doom. Guess they’re ending up in the bottom and consumed by something else in the ecosystem. In my opinion the ones I kept were the worst off, but then again who can really tell. I’m certainly not gonna pass up a deep point full of activity on the graph when I’m after Lake Trout and Whitefish. I’ll probably still fish there again this season before the ice.

Well, I feel a little bit better as I did see them make it back to bottom fairly quickly on the graph. And didn’t waste much time with them. But great lesson all around.

This is great info Disco… for the info not for the fish I caught. It was amazing fishing and I wish they were the stocker trout I was targeting. On other lakes I was getting bass at those depths so I didn’t even rethink twice. It’s unfortunate to think I sent all those fish to their doom. Guess they’re ending up in the bottom and consumed by something else in the ecosystem. In my opinion the ones I kept were the worst off, but then again who can really tell. I’m certainly not gonna pass up a deep point full of activity on the graph when I’m after Lake Trout and Whitefish. I’ll probably still fish there again this season before the ice.

I understand completely.

We all do our best knowing what we know until we learn better. I wouldn't write off those fish but yes their chances are decreased. What are you going to do though as our regs don’t allow for you to keep that many big walleye and it’s not like you know what size you’re going to catch not to mention you were not targeting walleye.

Hope you enjoy those walleye fillets. 👍🏻