North Dakota walleye
The Washington Post

Giant North Dakota Walleye Breaks State Record

Walleye records don't fall that often. 

It's almost summertime. If you follow fishing reports all over the country like we do, you see a different person catching a state-record fish every week. However, over the course of the year, there may only be one or two walleye that challenge any of the current records. With that being said, this North Dakota walleye is the king fish for the state, at least for now.

"My brother said, 'There's some fish down there,' so I grabbed a plastic (bait), threw the line in, and boom!" said Neal Leier, the man who set hooks into the record fish, in an interview. "It hit, and it hit hard, but it didn't fight a lot. Took me about a minute to bring it in. It just drug in like a log."

After getting his walleye certified, his giant fish weighed in at 15 pounds, 13 ounces. What makes this walleye even more incredible is that it broke North Dakota's longest-lasting fish record for any species standing for nearly six decades. Even though this is now official, it was still pretty close. Blair Chapman was the previous record holder, standing since 1959, with his fish weighing in at 15 pounds, 12 ounces. 

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Luckily, Leier's fish must've just eaten a bluegill before he caught it.

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