Ethan Bear and his two fishing buddies will never forget the day of walleye fishing they had on July 10 in North Dakota. Along with a handful of trophy-sized walleyes, Bear also caught a 27-inch ‘eye with rare, bright golden coloring.
“I’ve heard of fish like that,” Bear tells Outdoor Life. “But before this I had never even seen pictures or known of anybody who has caught one.”
Bear, 21, and his friends got to the lake early that morning because they knew it was going to be a scorcher and they hoped to have action early (the lake will remain unidentified to avoid excessive fishing pressure). By midmorning they’d only caught a nice 28.5-inch walleye and as the water temperature increased they moved out into a deeper part of the lake. They scanned with forward-facing sonar looking for big fish and casting ⅜-ounce jigs tipped with nightcrawlers to the marks.
Eventually Bear spotted another fish with his electronics that he thought could be worth casting at. The fish was lying on the muddy bottom in about 19 feet of water.
“I wasn’t even gonna pitch to it cause it looked so small, and we just kept getting closer and closer and slowly got a little bit bigger and I was like, ‘well guys, I’m not seeing much around, so I’m just gonna go ahead and see what this one does,’” Bear says. “I pitched at it and instantly it just shot up and destroyed [my bait].”
“I was like, ‘man, this is a pretty big fish here,’ and then my buddy just happened to start recording it,” Bear says. “And we saw a flicker and we all kind of went silent cause we were like, what was that? It was a super weird flash in the water. Then it came up for the second time and swirled right at the surface, and that’s when my other buddy said, ‘oh my God, it’s a gold,’ and we all immediately kind of froze up. When it was in the net we all freaked out a little bit.”
Ethan Bear Catches an Incredible Golden Walleye
Bear says he thinks the fish had xanthism, which is a genetic mutation that prevents the scales from making the proper molecular structures to convert white light to blue, according to Target Walleye. In other words, the walleye turns gold instead of green.
Bear says that for a second he considered keeping the fish for a skin mount, but instead quickly released it after capturing some photos. He says the fish kicked off healthy and that he plans to get a replica made.
“I don’t generally keep walleyes over 21 inches,” Bear says. “Our goal is just to go down and catch [and release] as many big fish as possible.”
Bear, a wind tower technician, was born and raised in North Dakota and has been a diehard walleye angler his entire life. Later on that day he and his buddies managed to catch a handful of other stud walleyes over 25 inches.
“I don’t even know how many we ended up catching,” Bear says. “We’ll definitely be planning another weekend day here soon, I’m sure.”
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