blue walleye

[Dr.Ed]

I don't have the time it would take to tell you about all the blue pike stories but I am 77 years old and upon returning from Texas in 1950, my dad, his brother, his best friend and I would launch at Avon point where my dad kept his boat. We would run out an estimated 2 miles, drop a plumbob(Lead weight 6 oz) to verify rock bottom. drop anchor, light the Coleman lantern as it got dark, fish with crawlers until the minnows came in. We would drop a 3/4 oz bell sinker below 2 baited No.4 hooks and fill 2 wet bushel size burlap sacks with blue pike before 10 PM. Lights on shore would guide us home. The only instrument on the dash was a compass.
The fish were scaled, fileted and tossed in the frig until the weekend when the family and friends would gather for the best fish fry on earth. My mom and aunt would dip the filets in egg, roll them in saltine cracker crumbs and fry them in Crisco. The taste was unbelievable and according to health experts I should have died a long time ago.
I will take full responsibility for my family and friends contributing to the demise of the Lake Erie blue pike.
A note of interest. We killed the fish by breaking their necks before throwing them in the burlap. My dad said it was the humane thing to do and less adrenalin was released so the fish tasted better. To this day, I kill the fish before they even leave the net. Does anyone else do this???