Captain Phil pulls monster walleye through the ice!

Captain Phil Carlson has another big fish story to add to his personal experience library.  This time the big fish didn’t get pulled from the ocean outside of Sitka where he is a fishing guide for Angling Unlimited during the summer months.  This time Captain Phil was ice fishing on Pokegama Lake in Northern Minnesota. 

Captain Phil and his 30 inch walleye

On January 7^th, Captain Phil and Andrew Pooch(former deckhand for Angling Unlimited) decided to go ice fishing on Pokegama Lake together.  As an avid ice fisher, Captain Phil had never caught a fish before on this particular lake, and he was anxious to try the new spot.  Andrew and Phil located a hump that started at sixty feet deep and rose to approximately eighteen feet.  They like to fish near an edge when targeting walleyes.  They chose to drill their holes through the ice and fish in a spot on this drop off that was about twenty-seven feet deep. 

It was Phil’s jigging rapala spiced up with the head of a fathead minnow that the big walleye found irresistible.  Once the fish was hooked up, it didn’t take long for Phil and Andrew to realize that this fish was big.  Fighting a big fish through a 10 inch hole while standing on sixteen inches of ice is a unique challenge, but everyone that has ever ice fished knows that the real challenge is getting a big fish’s head turned and started up the ice hole without breaking the line.  This is why it is important to have a fishing buddy that isn’t afraid to get an arm wet, which is exactly what Andrew had to do.  After Phil struggled to get the big walleyes head turned up the ice hole, Andrew reached down the 10 inch hole through the sixteen inches of ice and water and was able to grab the walleye under the gill plate and pulled him out!

Now the celebration begins!  The big walleye was thirty inches long with a seventeen inch girth.  The first fish Captain Phil landed on Pokagama Lake will be mounted and displayed proudly on his wall.  Good work guys!