TROPHY ROOM

Keith Omlie walleye

Keith Omlie of Lankin, N.D., caught this 24-inch walleye on Lake of the Woods.

January 30, 2012

Jordan Omlie walleye

Jordan Omlie of Lankin, N.D., caught and released this 22½-inch walleye on Lake of the Woods.

January 30, 2012

Tracy Omlie sturgeon

Tracy Omlie (left) of Lankin, N.D., caught and released this 54-inch sturgeon Jan. 21 on Lake of the Woods while fishing with her husband, Keith (right), and son, Jordan. Tracy said they didn’t weigh the sturgeon, but her husband estimated it weighed 30 to 40 pounds. “I know I couldn’t hold it up by myself,” Tracy writes. “I was using his perch rod with only 4-pound test line. It took about 30 minutes to get that fish out of the water. Holy! My arms were sure tired. Well, it was very exciting! My hair is a mess in this (picture). It was about 9 a.m., and we slept in our new Ice Castle all weekend.”

January 30, 2012

Gary Stjern walleye

Gary Stjern, Grand Forks, released this 28½-inch walleye on Lake of the Woods.

January 26, 2012

Trio of trophies

Nick Baer, a UND student from Duluth, caught all three of these walleyes within 24 hours at “the same secret location,” fishing partner Cole Johnson writes. (Discerning anglers should be able to figure out the general location by looking at the shoreline.) He caught the top fish, a 31-inch walleye weighing 14 pounds, at 5:45 p.m. Jan. 15; the second fish, a 30-inch, 12-pound walleye was caught at 6:40 a.m. Jan. 16; and Baer picked up the third fish, a 28-inch, 10-pound walleye, at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 16. Baer kept the 14-pound walleye and released the other two, Johnson said. Also witnessing Baer’s three fish were Bradey Lillehaug and Ryan Wolff.

January 22, 2012

A.J. Rogalla walleye

A.J. Rogalla, 5, of Thief River Falls, released this 26-inch walleye Jan. 21 while fishing Lake of the Woods.

January 22, 2012

Carter Olson northern pike

Carter Olson, 5, of Grand Forks caught this 36-inch northern pike while fishing Stump Lake with his dad, Brad Olson.

January 22, 2012

Riley Kornkven walleye

Riley Kornkven, 7, of Thompson, N.D., caught and kept this 4.7-pound walleye on Devils Lake. “Riley pulled this one in after five minutes on the ice,” his dad, Ron Kornkven, writes. Riley is in second grade.

January 16, 2012

Al Pemberton northern pike

Al Pemberton of Redby, Minn., caught this 40-inch northern pike while fishing Lower Red Lake on the Red Lake Indian Reservation. Pemberton estimates the fish weighed 23 to 25 pounds.

January 16, 2012

Kaden Monsebroten walleye

Kaden Monsebroten of Newfolden, Minn., released this 27-inch walleye Jan. 14 on Lake of the Woods.

January 16, 2012

Tyler Cunningham walleye

Tyler Cunningham, 8, a second-grader from Thompson, N.D., caught this 20-inch, 2¾-pound walleye, on Devils Lake while fishing with his dad, Kenny, and Ron Kornkven. The walleye was his first fish of the day, and it was kept.

January 11, 2012

Derek Plautz buck

Derek Plautz of Thompson, N.D., shot this 140-inch, 10-point buck on the second-to-last day of North Dakota’s archery deer season near Thompson. “We had trail camera pictures of him for the last month,” Plautz writes.

January 11, 2012

Bryan Mason pike

Bryan Mason of Grand Forks released this 37-inch northern pike on the Red Lake River near East Grand Forks. The fish weighed about 13 pounds on a “not so good” scale, Mason writes. “Super fight with this beast, barely got it through an 8-inch hole! Good fishing is right in our back yard, believe it or not!”

January 08, 2012

Mark Lothspeich pike

Mark Lothspeich of Grand Forks speared this 40¼-inch northern pike Jan. 7 on Devils Lake. According to friend and fishing partner Greg Mattson of GrandForks, it was the first time Lothspeich had tried spearing.

January 08, 2012

Mike Stoltman walleye

Mike Stoltman of Minto, N.D., caught this 13.4-pound walleye Jan. 2 on the Red River. The fish measured 31½ inches, and Stoltman kept the walleye. He also released a 28-inch, 8½-pound walleye the same day.

January 03, 2012