Expert advice leads angler to 18.4-pound walleye

FISHING — Wayne Heinz wrote a story for Northwest Sportsman magazine recently about the anglers who’ve caught whopper pre-spawn walleyes — including the state record — out of the Columbia River and its sloughs in McNary Pool.

Then he went out, practiced what he’d professed — and caught a near-record walleye, according to Andy Walgamott’s NWS Editor’s Blog .

Heinz points out he was fishing just a mile from where Mike Hepper of the Tri-Cities caught his state record 19.3-pounder in February 2007.

Barely able to land the egg-stuffed female — cold water has postponed the spawn, perhaps — Heinz’s Berkley scale showed the fish at 19.6 pounds — a potential state record if the scale was close.

Turns out the scale wasn’t too accurate.  A certified Albertson’s scale pegged it at 18.4 pounds after it had lost a lot of eggs and blood in the boat.

“Looking back, I regret killing it,” Heinz told Walgamott. “There’s no glory in runner-up.”

But he pointed out that it’s at least another indicator of the the quality of the Columbia’s fishery.