Cold Rejection
October 19, 2026
Philippe and his wife Julia, along with their father’s, Ben & Marc, were with me today. They were hoping to get some sturgeon, followed by smallmouth bass fishing. The weather looked pretty good for most part, with the exception of freezing cold morning air temps. Couple that with the big SW winds coming and it was almost a perfect, average day. At least it wasn’t raining!
Within 10 minutes after setting the lines, we had a bite and Ben soon fought his first ever sturgeon. It was a good one and went airborne almost immediately. I love when they do that, as you get to see exactly what you’re fighting. It was a great battle and Ben loved every minute of it. Several pics were taken before it was released unharmed.
Two more sturgeon were hooked up and others got to fight their own, before we changed species. Philippe was the only one not to play with one, but it didn’t matter. He had already caught some of the largest white sturgeon out in BC and these failed in comparison to the reel giants out west!
We had pulled the lines when the winds began and now, we were doing battle with a different animal. Trying to hold and fish in these conditions was a real treat for them. It definitely didn’t make things easy, but somehow, they managed. I’m sure that everyone had bites that they never even felt and fish were lost. Julia managed to land the largest ones though and I wasn’t surprised. She was fishing the slowest and benefitted from her presentation.
I had covered plenty of good water and seen all kinds of fish on the sonar but they just didn’t seem to want to eat. Although we picked at them here and there, it was really a slow bite. I eventually made a long move in the big waves and relocated to another area offshore, in hopes of a few walleye. Hopefully this would be a better bite!
A large open water flat was what I targeted and I was marking good fish! Several drifts over nice marks only resulted in a handful of bites and one landed Walter. Fortunately, Marc was having fish for dinner as it went straight into the livewell. After multiple passes with only lost fish, I decided to try another area before we were done. They wanted to call it earlier and we were pressed for time. One more drift in these winds saw a couple of fish hooked, but unfortunately, they both escaped the net and livewell when they came off. We were officially done for the day!
Today was another interesting outing with plenty of opportunities. It seemed like the fish were acting strange with lighter than usual bites and plenty of rejection. Slow was the ticket and if you weren’t fishing this way, you weren’t catching! Despite all the challenges today, they all had a great time and landed some really good fish in the process. Better weather is forecasted for this week and I only hope that the fish react better. Fall is the time for both numbers and size and the best is yet to come!!
