MN State Record Walleye

[Fish Felon]

I saw this fish many a time when it was at the old James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History and it's truly an impressive fish. I've used it as exclamation point when arguing why MN walleye fishing is better than the Dakotas to my North Dakota peeps.....and it'll be a sad, sad day if either state ever breaks the weight of Minnesota's record walleye. ND has had several new state records in the past few years, and Jason Mitchell caught a 34" monster that I think might have broken the record for the Upper Midwest.

My dream fish is an 18lbs walleye out of the Red River up by the Canadian border....the DNR samples one or more over 18lbs virtually every assessment. It's not a high quantity walleye fishery but it's a high quality one. You'll catch mainly cats but the walleyes you catch on occasion will be some of the fastest you've ever seen....tons of mooneyes and goldeyes in that stretch of river, plus mad toms, making for an abundant forage base of extremely fatty, high protein prey fish.

An 18lbs walleye from the Red would count as the state record for both MN & ND = my dream fish.

I spent a week of six summers straight from about 10 to 16yo camping in the BWCA and fishing Sag....AKA the part of the BWCA my 14' MonArk and 20hp merc was legal to cruise around on.....so I have some sentiment for that area.....

.....but it's a damn shame that fish is being exiled back up in that part of the state.

The fish in that glass case should be the first thing you see while walking into the rotunda at the State Capital in STP, imo.


https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/sport ... going-home




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