Catching a big bonus, a surprise walleye on southern Lake Michigan

Kyle Kirchner caught a big freak walleye Thursday on southern Lake Michigan in Indiana waters.

"Fish was so big it barely fit across my Phoenix livewell!," he emailed.

The Frankfort man caught it on a homemade blade bait

"We got on the water at 11:45 a.m., limited out on perch first, then went casting for lakers, landed four of those before this guy hit," he messaged.

"This guy," his walleye, was 30.5 inches long with a girth of 17 inches. It weighed 11.8 pounds on the certified scale at Cabela's in Hammond.

"Fish was donated to their tanks, after a 30-day quarantine, it will be a new member of their tanks," he messaged.

FOTW, the celebration of big fish and their stories (the stories matter) around Chicago fishing, runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times.

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