Originally Posted by 403gl (Post 3343443)

Thought I'd share a few pics of a walleye that I helped my friend pull from the Red Deer River, downstream of the Tolman Bridge this past weekend. May have altered the ecosystem in the area with this monster gone! My friend used a bait ball lure.

13.38lbs/6.07kg
32"/83cm


Cheers.

Originally Posted by reelhooker (Post 3343483)

it seems like someone is under a bridge...

Originally Posted by 403gl (Post 3343479)

I'll find out what kind of lure it was. Oddly enough there was no epic battle, the treble hooks hooked it's tail,got wrapped around some heavy branches in the water and was stuck with its massive fin sticking out. Landing it meant wading out to retrieve it. So no bragging rights on the battle!

Mounting did cross our minds but none of the fishing spots had any good contacts and we were dealing with a fish we were eager to get weighed and measured before it spoils.

Delicious though, very difficult to cleanly fillet such a massive fish, didn't have a long enough knife and with such a thick spine it was hard to get all of it. Should've just paid those guys and t&t in hindsight !

Originally Posted by Lambo (Post 3343528)

Sounds more like a foul hook than a snag fishing technique. I've fouled hook fish in the tail before and they fight like crazy. I thought it was a monster but ended up disappointed to see a small fish.

Nice walleye!

Originally Posted by reelhooker (Post 3343483)

it seems like someone is under a bridge...

Originally Posted by Jet (Post 3343569)

Fish was foul hooked, not snagged unless he was deliberately attempting to snag the fish, which it doesn't sound like he was doing from the description.

And yes, it's legal to keep fish that are foul hooked if you're allowed to keep that fish (i.e. part of your regular limit).

Awesome beast of a fish. Glad you kept it and ate it.

Originally Posted by Red Bullets (Post 3344060)

Nice fish. The OP mentions problems with filleting the big fish... if a person has a big fish like this they don't always have to fillet them. The big fish can also be cut into nice 2 inch thick steaks too.

Meat anglers should always carry a cooler with ice to put the fish on. Frozen 2 liter pop bottles in the cooler are useful and no mess.

Curious on how much the fishes stomach contents weighed? It might have had 2 or 3 one pound perch or a 2 pound whitefish in its gut.

Originally Posted by Jet (Post 3344526)

Another way to fillet a big fish like this or pretty much any regular fish. Take the knife, go vertically in the side behind the gill plate, till you get to the spine, turn 90 degrees and go out towards the tail, with your hand on the body. Do the same on the other side, then take out the pin bones, and rib cage remaining on the fillet and any fins, then remove the skin from the meat (or leave it on). On the first fillet cut, (after the gill plate cut), cut a slit along the belly to the anus for a cleaner job.

If you bleed the fish first, as well as getting whiter meat, you get little mess and less slime during the filleting.

I switched to this method and it's much faster. Different groups of fish have slightly different pin bone direction (to the top or bottom of the fish), but it's a generic method that works for pretty much every fish.

Originally Posted by LutherDLG (Post 3344592)

This is how I fillet 95% of the time as well. I normally don't even gut the fish with this method - you just end up with two fillets and the head,spine and entrails all stay in tact.

Originally Posted by catnthehat (Post 3344605)

Is that what they call butterfly filleting?
Cat

Originally Posted by Talking moose (Post 3343458)

Nice fish. Some nerd is going to tell you it's a breeder and you should of let it go. Ignore him and realize his life is boring. Congrats!

Originally Posted by Jet (Post 3344690)

No, different. It's just straight down turn the blade 90 and out across the spine in one cut.

Essentially (excluding trimming, skinning and pin bone removal), it's 2 cuts, one for each fillet (with a 90 degree direction change mid cut). To do it a bit more cleanly, it's 4 cuts (i.e. slitting the belly after the cut behind the gill plate to the spine), the 4 cut just gives you a better straight line on the bottom of the fillet.

I did a quick search for videos on it, couldn't find any, but there should be something out there.

But bleeding is a good idea, otherwise it's easy to end with blood everywhere.

The only AB fish I'd do different would be Burbot (skin with pliers).

Another tip, if you don't have a filleting table with rubber mat / water supply, then newspaper is king, stack a few sheets, it soaks up the slime and keeps everything contained, and you can peel sheets off with entrails on etc. and dump as you work through the the filleting process.

Scalable, universal, fast and you get a non-mauled result.