Sunday, August 2, 2009

Record Walleye? (For the family, at least...)

Last week, one of the guys from the congregation - Jean-David Jutras - invited me to go on a fishing trip with him in Northern Alberta. We went to Calling Lake, a northern lake right beside of Grandpa's favorite fishing lake - Fawcett Lake.

I had never caught any walleye before, so Jean-David was going to show me how to catch some. And catch some we did! Here is the picture of my second walleye there. We weighed it, and it was right at 5 lbs. Unfortunately, we never got to eat it, as it bent the stringer during the day and got away. Here are two pictures of it.





Jeremy? Curt? Is this the record for walleye? We should really have a page somewhere discussing who caught what for the family records. :)

Thanks for the great trip, Jean-David!

10 comments:

Jeremy said...

Great walleye Matt! I hope you enjoy eating it. Your walleye, my dear brother, would have to be more than 25.5 inches long with a girth of more than 15 inches long in order to beat the one I caught out of the Rideau River.
Jeremy

Matt said...

Hmm.... I think you still have the record then. According to this website, a walleye with that size is 8.32 lbs. ( http://www.walleyecentral2.com/fish-weight.asp )
I assume that it was a pretty fat walleye, eh? (Because if I just enter in the length, then I get 6.14 lbs.)

We didn't enjoy eating it. It bent the stringer and got away. :(

Curt and Jen said...

Matt,
Terrific! I hope you enjoy eating it too. If it's true that it broke the stringer, I would probably eat the stringer if I was you.
Your walleye, my dear brother, would have to be over 8 inches long with a mighty girth of 4 inches to beat the one I caught at Sam de Cham years back. Or more than a pound and a half to beat the one I caught on the Grand River. So I and my pickerel are not even in the running.
Although I might have the fam rec for sauger/saugeye. Mind you that's about 13-14 inches or so. Not much to say there either.
See you soon!!!

Matt said...

Curt, I laughed for a LONG time when I read your comment. :) I hope our dear brother Jer isn't at all mortified by your tongue-in-cheek comments. :)

Yes, I will see you soon! (And am really looking forward to it too.)

Jeremy said...

Matt, thank you for evincing my arguments! I logged on to your post this morning, expecting to have to defend my estimable walleye (the walleye was estimable, not me)... and found that you had done my work for me. Curt definitely holds the record for saugers... I'm sure that he will continue to dominate in this category. Congrats on a great walleye Matt! I'm sure it was exciting to catch.

Laura said...

Ah, but the crucial question: Where's the evidence? Matt has a picture. And Jeremy . . . ? :)

Matt said...

Yeah, well, a picture isn't necessarily proof either. Have a look at this picture ( Fish Tail
) and then this one (
Real Picture
). I'm not saying, of course, that I doctored up the walleye picture or anything. :)

Jeremy said...

Laura: As to pictures, I will have to direct you to Ruth. Then again, the artificial distension that Matt's fish experienced does raise questions about the veracity of pictures in general... perhaps one of your own included!

Unknown said...

Why continue all this talking? I hear we've all been outfished by a lady among us.
Actually, in terms of that, my wife also caught and landed a quite substantial fish, though she never ate it(and hopefully never will). Remember, girth is worth... and its a testimony to great cooking.

Ruth said...

Matteo... Any other catches made out there? And where is Jean-David in the pictures? Tsk tsk :)