Walleye full of white stuff?

Got to say, I’ve been hardcore walleye fishing for the past 5 years and have never seen this before. My father who has been catching walleye for 40+ years has never seen it either.
I caught a nice 19″ walleye today and in the process of unhooking it fell and took a bad hop in the boat, slicing the gills all up. There was no way for it to survive, so I went ahead and kept it. I figured it was a big female, since it looked like it swallowed a baseball. When I cut it open the whole inside was filled with 4 rows of white stuff. To the best of my knowledge it looked like white eggs. She did have a tiny patch (maybe 1/16″) of yellow eggs at the very front of one of the rows. But the rest were just big masses of white. They must have weighed at least a half pound total. It felt really gritty, just like eggs, but I have never seen white eggs in a walleye. Even catching them in the winter when they are forming, the eggs are yellow.

Has anyone seen this before? I thought maybe they were undeveloped eggs since the water temps went from 34º to 62º in 2 weeks. I guess I should have snapped a picture.

Sounds like a boy fish to me.
Males have longer rows of milk white tubes inside them.

Agreed it is a male. We had a couple a few weeks ago I was so so if I should take home but the average size was not so small. So I boxed 3 to bring home and all 3 looked like females but turned out to be all males. I have a hunch with the mild winter the shad also had it easy and the fish ate very well this winter in the lake.

Good call on the shad. Boxed a few saugers last week and I can say that I have never seen so much fat in a fish that I have filleted. It was like they were corn fed…

Where in the fish was the white stuff? You say 4 rows of it so it has me wondering. I don’t know of any male, of any species, that has 4 testes nor do females have 4 ovaries. I have seen ovaries that look split but they really aren’t. Did the white stuff look like this: http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/fish_diseases/myofibrogranuloma.html

If its solid white in long skeins its milt, if its sorta soft and fatty lookin its fat. Just invited 4 male eyes to dinner and thats what I think it is.

I really do not think it was milt. Kept 2 other ones that were males with milt and it was nothing like this. These felt hard, just like eggs in the winter. I guess it was probably 2 rows connected, but it looked like 2 on each side. They were a good 5-6″ long and about 3″ around. About the size of a bar of soap on each side.

The males had 2 small pockets of white, about the size of a swim bladder and they were leaking all over the place when I cut them. This was hard.

Maybe it was a transvestite…..a he/she walleye

i think it may be early for this to happen but she may be absorbing the eggs due to the odd weather……. i have herd of females doing this before but have never seen it or no what it would look like?

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Maybe it was a transvestite…..a he/she walleye

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Hermaphrodite…

I’ve run into quite a few fish this winter and spring, simply fat and well fed from the shad I believe. I feel as if if this has come up past seasons, these fish eat REALLY well. I really never harvest fish over 16 inches and at times I thought the 15 inch saugers I brought home were full of eggs, but just fat males. I’ve seen 15 and 16 inch walleyes like this as well.

Baby batter

Sure sounds like walleye jizsacs to me.

What did it taste like?

Gross Pug. I had one last week that was like that too. It was pure fat. I had never seen anything like it in 30 years of fishing. these fish are extremely well fed this year.

Whuuuuh? That is a valid question.