If you’re one of those poor souls who lost a valuable possession in the lake such as a fishing rod, sunglasses, a watch, or even worse, your wallet or phone… then you know that terrible feeling of defeat that can’t be described unless you’ve experienced it yourself.
It just sucks…
I mean, there are precautions you can take (like using lanyards) but accidents happen and the more time you spend on the water, the more likely you are to lose something. I can say that I’ve only lost a pair of Blue Otter sunglasses (RIP), but for others, it’s been much worse.
Like… $2,000 cash worse.
According to WDAY, Connor Halsa was fishing for walleye on the Lake of the Woods in Minnesota, when he thought he had landed a MASSIVE fish.
However, when he reeled it in, he realized it wasn’t a fish…
It was a wallet loaded with some serious cash.
The 14-year-old told the outlet:
“My cousin opened the wallet, and he said some words you probably shouldn’t say, and he showed everyone, and we took the money out and let it dry out.”
Needless to say, it’s a miracle Halsa caught the wallet, considering the Lake of the Woods is a whopping 70 miles long and wide… a whopping 950,400 acres.
Halsa’s dad told him that they should return the wallet to its owner, and that’s what they did.
They noticed a business card inside the wallet, and discovered it belonged to Jim Denney, a farmer from Iowa who had gone fishing in the lake a year before..
Denney told the outlet how he lost it:
“The water was really rough, and I was sitting on the back of the boat and it was rocking back and forth, and it worked itself out (of the pocket of his bib overalls) and slipped off into the water.”
He didn’t realize he had lost it until he went to pay the final bill at the resort they were staying at. Luckily, the resort lent him the money until he could pay it off.
He continued:
“That’s the (worst) feeling I ever had, didn’t have a penny on me.”
Denney traveled to Moorhead, Minnesota to see Halsa, and even offered a cash reward, but the teen refused.
So, to repay him, Denney gave him a custom cooler with the image of a fish on the lid, and also took the family to dinner.
Denney had high praise for the teen:
“I would take Connor for a grandson any day, and I would fight for him any day.”
As for Halsa, he learned a valuable life lesson:
“Be nice to everyone and give back. We didn’t work hard for the money, he did. It was his money.”
Respect.
New York Angler Caught Stuffing Walleye In Fishing Tournament
You would think after Chase Cominsky and Jacob Runyan got caught stuffing walleye with sinkers during a walleye fishing tournament on Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio last year, other past cheaters would’ve learned their lesson for the future…
Especially after the video went viral of all the fellow fishermen ready to throw down and whoop their a**.
But nah, people are dumb unfortunately, and a similar situation played out again this past weekend.
It went down this past Saturday, during the Bart’s Cove Walleye Duel in Dunkirk, New York.
Everything was going smooth, until tournament organizer Mark Mohr began to cut open the fish during the weigh in…
And that’s when Mohr realized competitor Pete Smith had stuffed two of his walleye with a smaller fish to increase the weight.
A 12-inch walleye with its tail cut off was discovered inside one of his fish. The other had a white perch inside of it.
Mohr discussed the ridiculous scene with Outdoor Life:
“They both had holes in their lips, and they were both stuffed inside bigger walleyes. The 12-inch walleye, it looked to me like they tried to stuff it and it wouldn’t go down, so they cut the last three inches off.
It was suspicious because the fish was still really bright, and then I picked it up and could see a hook mark in its lip.”
He said that cutting open fish has always been a standard practice at the Bart’s Cove tournament, even before the Ohio incident. And considering the winners got cash prizes and an all-inclusive trip to Panama, it’s necessary:
“It’s always been that way since before Ohio. But after what happened there, I absolutely insisted that every single one of these fish be cut open — not just Pete’s.
It’s just stupid what he did, especially after last year. I still can’t believe it.”
And the worst part for Smith? He didn’t even have to cheat to have a shot at winning some money.
Mohr then said:
“I got a phone call from Pete’s wife. She let me know that one of the individuals in Pete’s boat admitted to her that they did cheat, and that he was afraid to come to the weigh in on Saturday.
But the thing about it is that Pete didn’t have to stuff them. He only gained maybe 10-12 ounces, less than a pound. But he had a 22-something pound bag, and the next closest was 19-pounds.”
Mohr says the DEC will decide if its necessary to file criminal charges or not, and Smith is now banned from the tournament. He also hopes this past Saturday will show fishing tournament organizers that they need to really keep an eye out for this stuff.
Shameless…
Ice Fisherman Pulls In MASSIVE Walleye In New York
Have a DAY.
Back on January 25th, fisherman Ed Green from Northhampton, Pennsylvania pulled in a massive 16.3 pound walleye while ice fishing on Lake Ontario’s Chaumont Bay, according to Field & Stream.
Needless to say, it was probably a bittersweet moment for Green, considering the walleye was just two pounds shy of the New York state record.
However, Green’s guide, Louis Pagnetti, also admitted that the 16.3 pounder may be the biggest walleye that’s ever been pulled through the ice at Chaumont Bay.
Green told the outlet:
“Louis at Chaumont Masters called me that week and said he could almost guarantee good fishing if I came up. He’s really got those fish dialed in so I said, ‘I’ll be there.’
There were marks everywhere on the fish finder screen,” Green said. “We were running Panoptix with that new jigging Rapala—the Shadow Rap. We had the jigs tipped with minnow heads. They could not resist those things.
I didn’t know what the hell I had on, I fought it for 15 minutes. The best part was getting it up to the surface. It was the coolest thing ever. My wife and I were sitting in the shack next to each other, and we see this giant thing moving around beneath us. We could see it really clearly because the ice was so thin.”
Green’s fish was a whopping 31 1/4 inches and had a girth of 20 inches.
The current New York walleye record stands at 18 pounds two ounces, and was caught in the St. Lawrence River, not far from Chaumont Bay.
Green admitted that he thinks the next state record will come from one of those two locations:
“I think the next state record is probably going to come out of that same area. I ended up letting this fish go. But who knows, come early May, it could put on another pound or two.”
