The First Showing
September 6, 2019
Phil & I hit the water this morning for the first sturgeon trip of the season. Everything had been so late this year that it was no wonder that the big fish hadn’t arrived yet either! We were going to see if we could find at least one of those dinosaurs to fight!
I idled over an area for a little while and finally saw some life on the bottom. Although not what I am use to seeing, I set up regardless in hopes of getting bit. This time however, I decided to use the electric motor to anchor and not the usual back breaking one from past trips. It worked great!
After being tormented by little fish for a bit, Phil finally set into a real fish. He didn’t think it was big by the way he was bringing it towards him but it soon changed direction and size as well. For the next 5 minutes it fought like a sturgeon is supposed to and we wondered how big it really was. Eventually it did come up and we were both happy to see that it was definitely a quality fish. I was finally able to get the big net wet for the first time this season!
Once in the boat, we shot several pics before releasing it back, where he belonged! It was a long male that had decent weight and deserved to live. I still can’t understand why anyone would want to kill one of these things!
We set up afterwards and even made a couple of moves hoping for another, but we never even had one more bite. I guess we were lucky to have gotten the fish we had!
Our next attempt at fish was going to be smallies and I drifted in deep water, drop shotting vertically. I quickly showed Phil what he needed to do and it didn’t take long before we were into some fish. Several smaller than usual ones were boated but there were also some nice ones too! Phil had drop shotted with me before but this was the first time he was doing it in the deep and vertically. Once he understood how to stay straight over the fish, he began hooking more of them. Between the two of us we must have landed about a dozen in the short time we were out there.
After about an hour or so I decided to relocate to another area in the shallows and see if anything was active. Unfortunately all we managed was a couple of smaller fish and a few missed strikes. Time to move once again!
The winds had picked up considerable now and I decided to try another shallow spot to see if I could find the active fish that I was on, only a couple of days ago. Unfortunately it turned out to be about the same with just a couple of fish showing. I knew they were still there and tossed a jig in to see if the slower presentation would work and first cast one hit. Too bad it was the only one that wanted to play as only missed strikes were followed after that!
Our last attempt for the day was going to be a deep water shoal for walleye and it showed fish. We drifted over the area multiple times, both drop shotting as well as snap jigging but they didn’t want to take. I eventually switched to a drop shot as well and slowed down even more. I then finally hooked up but instead of a walleye, it turned out to be a nice smallie. Phil soon hooked up as well and his was the targeted species, completing his slam for the day.
These fish were really playing hard to get and I was forced to spot lock on top of smaller schools that I was marking to finally get a few more biters. In the end, we were able to land two more good keepers that actually fell off when netted. These fish really weren’t in the mood to eat!
I finally pulled out around 4:30 after a tough day of fishing. I’m not sure if was due to the weather yesterday or just the cold nights we have been having, but the fish were definitely not aggressive today. We literally had to work for every bite we had! The deep water fishing was definitely the most reliable and I might be concentrating on that for the next few days to come. I definitely want to get back out for another shot at those sturgeon again and hope that it improves as well.
Overall today was a tough one but Phil & I managed to do well in the end. He landed both his and the boats first sturgeon of the season and that was what we had wanted most of all. The rest of the fish were just a bonus! So was his slam too!
Plenty more days are still left in the season with the fall approaching and I hope to take advantage of as many them as I can. Hopefully there will be lots of big fish boated before the time runs out. Better days are still to come!
