OAKLAND -- Nathan Lawler called it one of the most amazing fishing experiences of his life.

Lawler caught a walleyed pike Saturday on Messalonskee Lake that is believed to be the first walleye landed by an angler in central Maine. It measured 22 inches long and weighed more than 5 1/2 pounds -- and was met with trepidation when it hit the boat launch that evening.

"I've been asking every person I possibly can," said the 28-year-old Lawler, who lives in Portland but was visiting his father who lives on Messalonskee. "There just seems to be no record of them."

Lawler said several people told him that walleye don't exist in Messalonskee.

There are records of walleye in the Belgrade Lakes, though none of any being caught by anglers. Several years ago, Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife trap nets caught walleye while trying to find salmon on Long Pond, said local biologist Scott Davis.

"We've already documented them in Long Pond, and that's interconnected," Davis said. "But (catching one) is probably like finding a needle in a haystack."

Without having seen the fish, but based on its reported length and weight, Davis estimated the fish could be as old as four or five years.

Lawler said he and a friend had been fishing for northern pike but found smallmouth bass and black crappie in large numbers. He knew as soon as the walleye hit -- sometime between 5:30 and 6 p.m. -- that something was different.

"I think I fought him for 15 minutes, no exaggeration," Lawler said, adding that he was using leftover, 30-pound test braided saltwater fishing line he found in his tackle box. "I couldn't believe it. It never broke water, not once. The fact he didn't break water like a bass would was what absolutely amazed me. He just wouldn't quit."

Lawler was using a jointed Rapala lure, fishing at a depth of 12-15 feet, he said.

"It was the most amazing freshwater fight I've ever had," Lawler said.

At one time in the 1930s and 1940s, the state of Maine stocked walleye in Great Pond, but that population did not survive.

Travis Barrett -- 621-5648

tbarrett@centralmaine.com