A big, heavy walleye: The Fish of the Week comes while ice fishing on the Chain O’Lakes

Mike Rudins caught and released a 25-inch walleye Thursday. It came on a Kastmaster.

“Saw the red line halfway up on the Vexilar, reeled up to it, a couple bounces of the spoon and it was on!,” he emailed. “She’s certainly packing on the winter weight!!”

Winter weight is a good thing in these settings.

And the spring ritual of the spawn is coming for the big ones. Spring is coming, eventually, for all of us. In the meantime, a very good stretch of ice fishing on the Chain continues.

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 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).