Angler Aaron Schuck boated a 16-pound, 8-ounce walleye on October 27 that beat a South Dakota state report for the species that had stood for greater than 20 years. Schuck, of Bismarck, North Dakota, was solely 20 minutes into an outing at Lake Oahe when he hooked the fish whereas slow-trolling a crankbait close to Akaska.
In an look on the Between Hooksets podcast, Schuck and his longtime fishing accomplice Jesse Schumaker stated the battle went fairly easily till Schuck bought his first take a look at the fish. “I may see her on the market and he or she was nonetheless about 5 toes from net-range, and I virtually had a coronary heart assault,” Schuck stated. “I feel I panicked slightly bit and simply began cranking on the rod. Then he put it within the web.”
The anglers had been pulling a Reaper crankbait made by Walleye Nations Creations in 40 toes of water on a channel edge, utilizing the trolling motor to maintain their velocity round 1 to 1.5 miles per hour. Schuck had 187 toes of lead-core line out behind the boat, with the crankbait working about 5 to 10 toes off the underside. He stated he selected the crankbait as a result of he’d had good luck with it in the identical space just some days earlier.
“I used to be down there the week earlier than and I used to be utilizing that very same Reaper and a Bandit, however that Reaper stored going off,” Schuck stated on the podcast. “So when me and him went, that’s the primary lure I placed on my lead. After which I put a Bandit on the snap weight, and the Reaper caught the large one.”
Weighing the File
Schuck and Schumaker braved frigid situations on the Missouri River reservoir to catch the lunker. Temperatures had been within the single digits once they set out and peaked at 20 levels, with a robust west wind. The wind made getting an correct weight on the water not possible, as the size stored bouncing round between 15 and 16 kilos. After fishing slightly longer, they determined to go in and get an correct weight on the fish—which turned out to be a good larger problem than catching it.
After they weighed the fish with Schumaker’s scale on the boat ramp, it confirmed 15 kilos, 12 ounces. They stopped within the city of Selby to seek for an authorized scale, however couldn’t discover one, in order that they determined to go dwelling. After they bought again to Bismarck, Schuck grabbed a scale from his boat and got here up with a weight of 16 kilos, 5 ounces. They tried Schumaker’s scale once more, after warming it up first, and it additionally confirmed 16-5.
“There I sit with the state report on my fish-cleaning desk, and no person goes to find out about it,” Schuck stated. “It was simply consuming at me that this fish stands out as the state report, and I don’t know the place to take it.”
The walleye stayed in Schuck’s fridge all day Sunday whereas he known as round to find an authorized scale, lastly discovering one in Pollock, South Dakota. On Monday morning, he determined to weigh the fish another time earlier than making the drive to South Dakota: If his scale didn’t present not less than 16 kilos, he determined, he was taking the fish straight to the taxidermist. It confirmed 16 kilos, 5 ounces.
Learn Subsequent: Angler Lands Large Steelhead in Clearwater River, Breaks Idaho State File
The official weight, witnessed by South Dakota officers, who introduced the brand new report through Fb publish on October 31, was even higher: 16 kilos, 8 ounces, with a size of 33 inches and a girth of 21 inches. It tops the earlier report, a 16-pound, 2-ounce fish caught by Georgine Chytka on the Fort Randall Tailwaters on November 16, 2002.
