Big walleye, a boat story & Heidecke Lake: Fish of the Week

My son recently acquired a 1971 Thompson Sea Gull and we got it running and my brother Tom and I decided to take it to Heidecke for a test run. Of course we brought fishing gear along in case everything went well. We were backing the boat in when a young couple came running up to us and asked for a jump. They thought their battery was dead. We completed the launch and I pulled my truck over to their vehicle and proceeded to jump their car. Success! As I left they said Thanks hope you get a big one . They must have been psychic. We started the boat, the electric choke worked great and I was thinking to myself, this boat might be OK. We pulled out of the small harbor and gave the motor some gas and up on plane we went. I told my brother geez this thing is running good. Let’s go under the bridge and fish the north side where my wife and I had done well Saturday evening and my son and I had done REAL well Sunday morning. The boat does not have a trolling motor but light winds out of the northeast allowed us to do what we needed to do. We started fishing at 4:30. 2 nd cast yielded a nice smallmouth. Then after about 15 more minutes I lost something substantial. We completed our drift and I told Tom,let’s go back through there. We did and very close to the same spot I hooked up again. I could tell this fish was no striper, after a couple minutes or so I raised the fish high enough to see it. My brother put down his rod realizing this was a serious fish. We boated an absolutely beautiful 27 1/2 inch walleye. We did not weigh it but I am quite sure it was over 7 pounds. Quit fishing at 7 to allow time to get the boat out for the first time. We ended up with 4 Walleyes 19 3/4, 20, 22, and of course the 27 1/2. 4 large catfish between 5 and 8 pounds, 1 striper about 5 pounds and numerous Smallies. Pretty simple fishing, light line, split shot, hook and either fatheads or crawlers.