One of the best fish to eat is the walleye. Their white, flaky fillets come as a result of their cold water habitat and carnivorous tendencies. While they aren’t the most powerful fighters, there is something especially satisfying about wrapping a landing net around the golden flanks of a chunky walleye that, after a brief date with the stringer will soon form a fruitful relationship with the frying pan.
My favorite way to fish for walleyes is with a weighted worm-harness rig drifted on the bottom of the lake. It takes a bit of practice to discern the soft drag of weeds and the clunking of rocks from the tugging tap of a fish.
Ten minutes into our first walleye drift of the morning rocky clunks turned into tugging taps and I set the hook on the trip’s first walleye… or so I thought. It hit like a walleye, it’s weighty, head-shaking tussle felt like a walleye, in the tea colored water it evened looked for a moment like a walleye. But it wasn’t a walleye. The trip’s first walleye, was actually a nearly inedible fish called a sucker.
Sucker. I wonder if that’s what it was thinking when I tossed it back into the lake? Judging by the less than ecstatic expression on my face, that’s pretty much what I was thinking.