Big muskie at Heidecke Lake: Surprise notable catch while trolling for walleye earns Fish of the Week

Jeff Wolfe messaged the 48-inch muskie that Tim Brown of Porter, Ind. reeled in Friday at Heidecke Lake. He and Wolfe’s brother were trolling crankbaits for walleye.

I asked district fisheries biologist Seth Love what the biggest was the IDNR found during a survey.

“Just looked through the data, the biggest one so far was collected just a few weeks ago,” he emailed. “We got a 48.5-inch female that weighed ~33 pounds: Longest and second heaviest fish on record. It was the last day of the survey and was caught in one of the last nets. Not a `Canadian Shield’ fish but I think pretty good for a former cooling lake!”

FOTW, the celebration of big fish and their stories (the stories matter, as this one shows) around Chicago fishing, runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times. The online posting here at https://chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors goes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.

To make submissions, email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com) or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or Instagram (@BowmanOutside).