Forty-three years later, Minnesota record walleye moves back to Gunflint Trail

The walleye that can reside perpetually in Minnesota fishing lore has come house, or as near house as potential.

LeRoy Chiovitte’s 17-pound, 8-ounce walleye caught on Might 13, 1979, is a storied lunker caught on a history-making opening weekend of fishing.

When Chiovitte, of Hermantown, Minn., died in 2019 at age 82, he left no particular plans for the walleye, a mount of which had sat encased in glass for 40 years within the house he shared together with his spouse, Joanne.

Now, in a deal blessed by her and favored by a majority of Duluth Information Tribune readers who responded to tales written final summer season by that newspaper’s outside author, John Myers, the fish will likely be completely showcased on the Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Middle, operated by the Gunflint Path Historic Society.

A ceremony inducting Chiovitte’s walleye into the museum will likely be held from 4-6 p.m. Might 29 on the museum (extra at gunflinthistory.org)

The museum is situated solely a mile or so from the place the fish was caught, within the Sea Gull River between Sea Gull Lake and Lake Saganaga.

Chiovitte, a salesman of pipe valves, fittings and tubing, was a fisherman’s fisherman, and given his ardour for the game, he was as deserving as any Minnesotan to catch the state’s document walleye.

The times main as much as the primary weekend of fishing in 1979 have been chilly — a lot in order that, as would be the case this yr, ice remained on some northern Minnesota lakes on the season’s first days.

“Again then, I used to be fishing on a regular basis, up early and staying late,” Chiovitte advised me the final time I talked to him, in 1995.

On the Friday earlier than the 1979 opener, Chiovitte and a pal, Lorin Palmer of Cloquet, and Palmer’s teenage son, Todd, drove to the top of the Gunflint Path.

At midnight — the minute fishing grew to become authorized — they launched their aluminum boat, ready to be on the river many of the night time.

Every was rigged with a spottail shiner on a plain hook, weighted with break up pictures. The anglers’ boat was anchored in a river eddy, simply out of the present, in 10 to 12 toes of water.

“We would forged into the quicker water and let the present swirl our baits round,” Chiovitte mentioned.

The primary fish within the boat, caught by Chiovitte, was a walleye weighing 12½ kilos, a hefty spawned-out feminine. The trio caught one other 5 walleyes weighing between 3 and eight kilos earlier than, at 10 a.m., they decamped to a close-by cabin to sleep.

“We knew fishing can be slower throughout the day, so we picked that point to relaxation,” Chiovitte mentioned.

The waters the three fished are not open to anglers on a season’s preliminary days. Division of Pure Assets (DNR) fisheries managers imagine the river’s spawning walleyes want safety till they disperse into Sea Gull Lake and Lake Saganaga.

In 1979, nonetheless, the Sea Gull River was well-liked amongst opening-weekend anglers. Moreover, catch-and-release walleye angling was solely in its infancy on the time, if that. So maintaining large fish, as Chiovitte and his mates did, was commonplace.

Again on the water at 5 p.m. on opening day, the three once more fished spottails on plain hooks.

“We fished till about midnight Saturday, catching a couple of extra fish,” Chiovitte mentioned. “Then we went to our cabin to sleep a couple of hours earlier than getting again on the water about 4 a.m.”

Chiovitte caught his document walleye at 8 a.m. Sunday, Might 13, 1979.

“A ship had been anchored close to us, and when it left, I forged my line to the spot it had been anchored,” Chiovitte mentioned. “That is once I caught it.”

The fish wasn’t a terrific fighter. However problems arose when the massive walleye wound itself across the boat’s anchor rope.

Lastly, Lorin Palmer pulled up the anchor . . . slowly.

“That is how we received the fish shut sufficient to get it in a touchdown web,” Chiovitte mentioned.

The Minnesota walleye document on the time was 16 kilos, 11 ounces, caught in Basswood Lake by an Iowan, Merle Pulliam, in 1955.

“I’ll always remember the sensation I had as I watched the size (at a close-by resort),” Chiovitte mentioned. ‘It simply saved going up and up. When it hit 17 kilos and saved going, I received weak within the knees.”

Although some anglers doubt Chiovitte’s document will ever be topped, others — I amongst them — disagree.

True, solely large feminine walleyes full of spawn are more likely to declare the crown, and most locations the place they hand around in spring at the moment are off-limits throughout the season’s first days.

However on July 4, 1989, then-College of Minnesota President Bob Bruininks boated a 17-pound, 6-ounce walleye that wasn’t weighed for greater than two hours after it was caught — a sign that, all issues being equal, Bruinicks’ brute may need out-bruted Chiovitte’s.

Moreover, in 2012, a Bemidji space fishing information, Don Mickel, mentioned he caught a walleye in Minnesota waters of the Wet River that tipped 17.9 kilos on his hand scale. The fish, Mickel mentioned, had a 24.25-inch girth and was 35.1 inches lengthy (Chiovitte’s walleye was 35.75 inches lengthy, with a 21.25-inch girth.)

However as a result of Mickel’s walleye was caught in waters designated catch-and-release solely by the DNR, it did not rely as a document.

But whether or not the present document stands for yet another day — or for perpetually — Chiovitte was nearly as good, and gracious, a walleye record-holder as Minnesota may hope for.

Not a braggart, he would nonetheless discuss his document catch to anybody who requested.

And lots of people, over 40 years, requested.

Now, with Chiovitte handed on, his large fish is being returned to her house waters, or practically so.

Appropriately.

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