I went down to the dam last night to go flathead fishing after getting bluegills for bait. I talked to the few guys that were there and they all said the bite is slow, water is still too cold on the main river.
I seen 3 younger guys fishing on the rocks below and they had a stringer full of eater sized walleyes and one pike about 6 pounds. I went down and started talking to them and they caught two more small male walleyes while I was talking to them. He then said want to see a picture of a giant walleye I caught here in this spot last year and I said ya.
He then said he got intouch with the local DNR Officer in this area and wanted to enter it as a potential new state record. He then said the DNR officer asked him if it was alive and he said no. The Officer then said they have to be alive before they can be entered into the record book and have to be weighted on a certified scale. It was weighed but on a Berkley digital scale in the baitshop. With disbelief he took it home and put it in the freezer to take to the taxidermist the next day. It was a large pre-spawn female and he said the taxidermst had to cut some of the belly skin off to fit it too the mold to get it mounted. He said you couldn’t have put the belly of this female into a MT. Dew 12 pack box that was laying there on the rocks. The Berkley digital scale said it weighed in at 17lbs 9 oz. and 29 3/4″ long with a huge belly, I seen the picture. He had it mounted takeing a 6″ bluegill. When I see him again I’m going to give him my e-mail address and see if he will send the picture to me, then I will post it. It was one of the biggest walleyes I’ve ever seen. I know a story is only a story without a picture but I seen it, I’ll try to get the picture.
Just sayin 
That would be like taking off a couple antlers on your buck so it fits above the fireplace…….Raise the ROOF FELLAS!!! I assure you any taxidermist working on anything close to a matched State Record would be simply a fool not having a mold match the fish on that elite trophy.
