Huge Walleye Caught in Skokie Lagoons

Sey Jay, a fishing veteran who has made the Skokie Lagoons his prime spot for the past dozen-plus years pulled in quite a catch recently.

Jay, a Skokie resident, caught and released his personal best walleye, a 28-inch, 10.7 lbs. chunker.

The catch came during a tough fishing year for Jay, who shared the news of his grab with Dale Bowman of the Chicago Sun-Times, who dubbed the catch the “Fish of the Week.” Until this, Jay was only able to land a fish as large as 18”.

“The tactic employed was hopping a large, lip-hooked fathead minnow on a hot orange 1/16th oz leadhead,” Jay wrote in an e-mail to Bowman, published by the Sun-Times.

“When my jig was retrieved 8 feet from shore, I felt that familiar ‘tick’ of a walleye bite. I set the hook into a heavy fish which shook its head and stayed down. Sometimes large cats fight the same way as walleye, so I was holding my breath that this fish didn’t have whiskers. When I saw the flash of gold and brown, I knew it was a trophy eye. It put my UL outfit with 4# mono to the test with short powerful runs. A few moments later my hand could barely get a grip behind the head as I wrestled her to shore. After a quick measurement, weighing, and a couple of mugshots, back into the water she went, unharmed.”

Although Jay said the fish would have made “a great trophy mount,” he could not harvest a fish as healthy as this one.

“Larger fish do not make good table fare,” he said.

Jay works in sales and marketing, according to his Facebook profile.

more via the Chicago Sun-Times