Walleye on the Chicago lakefront: Back-to-school special

Jackie Nishi simply planned in getting in one last fishing outing with family Wednesday before school restarted.

But it turned into more than that with the surprise of a walleye at Montrose Harbor. Walleye are notable rarities on the Chicago lakefront.

“I’m a teacher and start school next week,’’ Nishi said. “This was the last chance.’’

So there Nishi was before dawn with her younger sister Danielle Wojciechowski and father Steve Wojciechowski fishing near the east jetty at Montrose Harbor.

“It was like the third cast,’’ Nishi said. “I miscast and crossed my sister’s line. It had both our hooks in its mouth. The three of us kinda caught it.’’

She was casting a Moonshine spoon, a common lure to catch salmon returning to shore.

“At first, my dad thought it was a bass, but when it was brought up it was a walleye,’’ Nishi said.

Well, that fits. Nishi, who lives in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood, said they had fishing with hopes of catching anything they could. Her other trips this summer had come up empty at Montrose. Not this time, as her dad made sure.

“My dad netted it right away and it didn’t get away,’’ Nishi said. “My dad had not even thrown one cast. He had just put the net together. I guess it was meant to be.’’

It was their first and only one catch Wednesday.

“My dad said the splash [of the miscast] might have attracted it,’’ Nishi said.

They weighed the 24-inch walleye at 5.5 pounds at Park Bait to much surprise. Walleye are such rarities on the Chicago lakefront that almost every one caught is worth a story.

Walleye were native fishes according to both Philip W. Smith in “The Fishes of Illinois’’ and Joel Greenberg in “A Natural History of the Chicago Region.’’

Then, for multiple reasons, walleye disappeared on the Chicago lakefront, until sporadic catches became more notable beginning in 2000. Whether those walleye came from illegal rogue stockings by frustrated Chicago fishermen or from the populations at the Port of Indiana and in southwestern Michigan is unknown.

On Oct. 8, 2007, Toni Thomas established the modern record (unofficial, but on a verified scale) for walleye in Chicago when she caught one by wall on the main stem of the Chicago River near DuSable Harbor.

She was fishing about 3 a.m. with “worms and a little, itty-bitty red hook’’ when she thought she to hooked a salmon, but it was a walleye. The 25-incher weighed 6.75 pounds on the certified scale at Henry’s Sports and Bait.

Thomas’ unofficial record didn’t last long. On Sept. 11, 2008, Mike Osuch landed an even bigger walleye–7 pounds, 5.5 ounces on the certified scales at Henry’s–while fishing for salmon on the southern tip of Northerly Island.

As to her walleye, Nishi said, “My dad is going to clean it and my mom [Frankie] is going to cook it.’’

Nishi, who teaches fourth grade at Marvin Camras Elementary and is in her ninth year with the Chicago Public Schools, returns to the classroom on Tuesday ahead of students returning after Labor Day.

She’ll have a great story of what she did on summer vacation.