My first walleye!

I've been wanting to catch and eat some fish for quite some time, but it never works out. If I catch some eating-quality bluegill, I have to go to work and don't have a cooler. If I have a cooler, nobody bites. In an effort to try and catch some food, I made my first trip to Mallard Lake Monday evening.

I was sure that nightcrawlers under a bobber would do the trick, but all I caught were 3" gills. Perhaps all the eating sized ones have been harvested already, perhaps many others have had the same idea I did. Perhaps I shouldn't even eat fish from Mallard, or any other forest preserve lake...

While I had crawlers under the bobber, I threw out one of my favorite go-to lures, the white jig and twister. It really seems like under the right circumstances, that lure can catch anything that swims. All of the sudden I got a hit, another hit, bumpbumpbump, and I had a fish on! When I reeled it in I wasn't sure it was still on, but turns out it was just very small. My first Mallard fish, and my first perch of 2012! Not quite eating size though.... but I was excited to catch it!

Perch!

I've read perch travel in schools, so if there's one there may be more. I continued casting, hoping to find some bigger perch. A few casts later, I got a completely different kind of hit. It felt like branches, and then nothing. I wondered if I'd lost it... When I reeled in I knew almost immediately what it was, and to say I was overjoyed would be a huge understatement.

My first walleye!

I'm pretty sure I shouted "WALLEYE!!!" at the top of my lungs, and everybody on the path stopped and looked at me. That's ok, they should know how excited I was to finally catch a walleye.

Was it the tiniest walleye I could possibly imagine? Yes.
If I dropped it in the grass would it disappear due to it's diminutive size? Absolutely.
Did I care? Not in the least.

One of my main fishing goals for the year was to catch a walleye, and I did it. I admired its ferocious teeth and amazing coloring, forgetting about it's spiked gill plates. It didn't draw blood, but almost.

I took a few pictures, thanked it for letting me catch it, and carefully released it back into the water.

I'm still excited about catching this little guy