My relitives have been visiting and I took them camping on a county owned island, while we were out there fishing panfish from shore we discovered a 29 1/2 inch walleye that was swimming bellyup on the serface. She seammed healthy other than this, no prop marks or other notable injury or apperant sickness except that she seamed bloated (not rotting just a slightly larger than normal in the gut)which we attribeted her condition to.<br /><br />After a considerable amount of time trying to upright her I decided to put her on a stringer overnight(through the lip) to see if her condition would improve,it did not. Around mid morning I used a fillet knife to relieve some air from her gut to see if this would help but it really didnt do much for her except let her submerge.<br /><br />Had i caught this fish it would have been a largly diffrent story but since i found this beutiful fish i wanted to help her but after much invested time and effort to bring her around it become apperant that her future looked short.<br /><br />She rewarded me with some excelent photos and a nice memory of an incredibally awsome fish, after the pics we let the old girl face her fate.<br /><br />According to the length charts she should have been over ten pounds!! her girth was slightly over 18 inches.<br /><br />I told my wife that someday I hoped to be fortunate enoufgh to "catch" such a nice walleye.<br /><br />Her reply was the only time she had seen me smile as big in a picture was at elk camp and i must admit i wear quite a smile there!
