Here’s a fish tale for you: Retired CF&I steelworker Don Walker and his banker wife, Paula Walker, were floating in their sonar-equipped Stratos boat on Blue Mesa Reservoir near Gunnison early the afternoon of May 23. They were about ready to call it a day when the lunker of a lifetime bit. A half-hour later, the Florence couple realized the big fish they had in their boat was one for the Colorado record books. The 50-pound 5-ounce mackinaw, or lake trout, outweighed the previous record fish – landed in 2003 by Paula’s brother Larry Cornell – by almost 4 pounds. We caught up with Don early Thursday morning, a day so cold and blustery that even the hard-core angler wasn’t willing to go out on the water at his favorite lake, Blue Mesa.
Catch and eat or catch and release? Always catch and release. If we don’t put them back, there won’t be any trophies for the next generation. We would have put this one back, too, but we needed to take it to be weighed. I put a 36-pounder back last year. Really, what I was hoping to do was to land a 40-pounder. I didn’t dream of breaking a record.
You must have been thrilled! It was exciting. I knew I had a big one. But you don’t really know how big it is until you fight it for 25 to 30 minutes. When it surfaces and you see it, the adrenaline really gets going. I told my wife, “Honey, don’t miss this one.” It’s important to have a good netter with you. It’s a team effort.
Was your brother-in-law upset you broke his record? No, he and my sister-in-law were right across from us. Rena is a really good fisherman, too. She’s caught some huge fish.
How old do you think your big fish was? They say 30 or 40 years. Game and fish will do some testing, so they can tell pretty close how old it is. But lake trout were stocked in the early ’70s and a lot of them come from Lake Cristobal outside of Lake City.
Are you having it mounted for the mantel? Yes. It’s being done at Bob’s Taxidermy out of Buena Vista. That’s where the last three state records, including mine, have been mounted; Larry’s fish, and Matt Smiley’s fish before that.
When’s the best time to try and catch a really big fish? Early spring is probably the best. When the ice goes off, they’re hungry so they come in to feed.
Do you fish for makinaw all summer? No, in the next few weeks we’ll switch over to kokanee salmon. You use a different tactic for the kokanee than lake trout.
Are the kokanee trophy fish? Over here, they may get to a pound and a half or 3 pounds for a huge one.
So do you eat them? Pink salmon is real good eating. We keep enough to where we have enough for evening supper.
And where, exactly, is the best place to find a big fish at Blue Mesa? We fish the west end, but I don’t tell all of my secrets.
DON WALKER’S FISH, BY THE NUMBERS
Weight: 50 pounds, 5 ounces
Length: 44 1/4 inches
Girth: 34 3/8 inches
Weight of the previous record lake trout: 46 pounds, 14 ounces
Length of the previous record lake trout: 42 1/2 inches
Height of Don Walker: 68 inches
Size of the trophy fish that will come down from the Walker’s living room to make way for the new record fish: 32 pounds
