Pretty sure that a 25 lb was caught and released in the same area last year, but the guy was not willing to give out details. He claimed he did not care about a State Record, and I am not even sure if he knew it might push the world record. I know the friend of the friend If you know what I am talking about, so perhaps the story grew the size. LOL
Still, Puck is so right. The local managers know that the Walleye are doing more good then bad by eating Pikeminnow (previously known as squawfish) that eat far more smolts then the Walleye do. But the mental thought process in WA state is that if it is not "native" it is bad. The state, working with the Indians, killed off a world class Pike fishery at the Pend O'Reille River at the Northeast corner of the state. The Indians are working with the state now to set up major killing of the Walleye in Roosevelt Lake, the uppermost US dam on the Columbia.
I expect that any day they are going to issue extermination orders for all of us (people) not born in state and without ancestral proof of residence for at least 1000 years.
But until, come and get into the great SMB and Walleye fishing, while it last.