From the Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, we learn a Davenport angler who attends Gonzaga University reeled in an unexpected catch while fishing for walleye at Lake Roosevelt on February 11th. Gavin Boggs was fishing with a college friend near the Lincoln boat launch that afternoon when he hooked into something very big.
Boggs said, “I was targeting walleye at a depth of around 75 feet using a four-inch swim bait and it was a pretty tough day on the water. We did mark a lot of fish on the fish-finder but had only caught one walleye before this big fish took my lure.”
Boggs, whose family has a place at Seven Bays toward the southern end of Lake Roosevelt, continued his story, saying, “As soon as I hooked it, I thought it was a big walleye. I carefully let the fish do its thing down below the boat and then when it came to the surface and we netted the fish, I was totally surprised. I’ve never targeted whitefish in Lake Roosevelt. It is my favorite place to fish for smallmouth bass and walleye, and this has changed my mind about fishing for lake whitefish.”
Gavin caught the fish in the late afternoon and he texted his father about the catch. Gavin’s dad, Tony Boggs, did some research and told his son he might have a new state record on his hands.
According to WDFW, Boggs immediately iced the fish in a cooler and drove from Seven Bays to Davenport Family Foods, where an official scale verified the weight as 7.86 pounds. The store owner, a friend of the Boggs family, stayed late just so Gavin could have it officially weighed.
Gavin then took the fish to the WDFW Spokane regional office on February 14th, where biologist Danny Garrett measured this new state-record lake whitefish at 26.25 inches long, with a girth of 16 inches.
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The old state record weighed 7.50 pounds and was caught Feb. 19, 2021, by Jacob White at Cox Lake in Franklin County. Gavin said Jacob actually reached out to him on Facebook to congratulate him and “pass the torch”.
Will this record be broken again soon? Possibly. WDFW conducted a netting survey at Lake Roosevelt last fall and caught quite a few lake whitefish, including one that weighed 9.5 pounds.