Appears to be the case - gotta imagine it lost at least a few ounces.
FARGO — Aaron Schuck had to excuse himself and put down his cell phone Friday while talking to me about his state record walleye. He was fishing on Lake Oahe in South Dakota, a massive reservoir on the Missouri River, and his buddy had a big fish on the line. Schuck was needed on the net.
After a few minutes and some mostly inaudible chatter back and forth, Schuck could be heard saying, "Well, it's no state record but she'll do."
Schuck picked up his phone and I asked him how big the walleye was that he'd just helped haul into the boat.
"Oh, I'd say 28 inches. Maybe 30. It's a big fish," he said.
But in the context of our conversation, it wasn't
that big of a fish. Even though a 30-inch walleye will usually eclipse 10 pounds.
That's because Schuck is the new record-holder of the largest walleye caught by hook and line in South Dakota. He boated a 16-pound, 8-ounce monster Saturday, Oct. 28, from Lake Oahe near Akaska, S.D. It was 33 inches long.
The Bismarck, N.D., businessman caught the state record trolling a Walleye Nation Creation Reaper crankbait.
The fish broke the former record of 16 pounds, 2 ounces held by Georgine Chytka, who nabbed her walleye in November 2002 at the Fort Randall Dam tailrace on the Missouri River.
Schuck was fishing with his friend, Jesse Schumaker of Bismarck, when he caught the big walleye on a frigid day.
"It was so cold. Just a cold day out on the water. The back of the boat was iced up. My buddy almost fell in the water because he slipped netting the fish," said Schuck, a 43-year-old co-owner of 701 Caulking & Sealant in Bismarck.
Aaron Schuck's South Dakota state record walleye that weighed 16 pounds, 8 ounces filled up the net on the bottom of the boat.
Contributed photo
It's a good fish story.
Here's the rest of the story: It could've been even better.
Schuck figures the fish might've weighed 17 pounds immediately after it came out of the water, but through a series of circumstances he wasn't able to get it weighed on a certified scale until two days after he caught it.
Fish lose weight after death because of water loss and Schuck figures the delay cost him several ounces, maybe a half pound.
"It's a once-in-a-lifetime fish for sure, but it probably weighed more when I first caught it," Schuck said.
Here's the story:
Schuck and Schumaker, who usually fish the Missouri River around Bismarck and North Dakota's portion of Lake Oahe, drove the two hours south into South Dakota because they'd heard big walleyes were biting in the Akaska area.
"I've caught lots of big walleyes in my life, but I've never caught a really big one that I could get mounted," Schuck said. "I was looking for a 14-pounder, or at least one in that 12- to 14-pound range. So that's what we were looking for."
When Schuck hooked the big fish and reeled it within sight, he knew it was the walleye he wanted.
"When I saw it, I was yelling, 'That's 14! That's 14!," Schuck said. "It ended up being even bigger than that."
Not that Schuck and Schumaker knew the accurate weight right away. The digital scale in Schumaker's boat was hampered by the cold weather and the anglers didn't feel they were getting an accurate reading. It kept reading 15 pounds, 10 ounces but they felt the fish might be even bigger.
When they got back to the boat ramp, on stable ground, they weighed the fish again. It came up the same.
So Schuck and Schumaker drove back to Bismarck to Schuck's house. They went to Schuck's heated garage to clean fish when Schuck figured he'd try his scale, which was warm. It said the walleye weighed 16 pounds, 5 ounces.
Aaron Schuck's South Dakota state record walleye dwarfed other walleyes in the livewell. The big fish weighed 16 pounds, 8 ounces.
Contributed photo
"I was like, 'Holy crap. I caught the state record walleye in South Dakota and now I'm back in North Dakota,'" Schuck said. "I caught a state record fish and nobody's going to know about it."
By that time it was about 10 p.m. Saturday, too late to drive back to South Dakota and get the fish weighed on a certified scale in that state. So Schuck put the walleye in the refrigerator to keep it cool and moist — not the freezer, which would dry it out — and waited for the morning.
The next day, Sunday, wasn't the best day to roust a representative of the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department to help him officially weigh the fish, so Schuck began making calls to find out where he could have the walleye weighed on a certified scale in the presence of a SDGFP employee on Monday morning.
There was an official scale at Oahe Sunset Lodge in Pollock, just over the North Dakota border. So Schuck drove there Monday morning and had the fish weighed.
It tipped the scale at 16 pounds, 8 ounces.
"So, basically, 48 hours after I caught the fish it weighed 16-8," Schuck said. "I have to believe it was over 17 pounds in the boat."
His previous big walleye was a 31-inch fish that weighed 11 pounds.
Schuck will get the record fish mounted. He's been back on the water several days since catching the whopper, including Friday when I called.
"It's quite the story," he said.
