A Big South Easter

What a difference a day makes! From yesterday’s spectacular weather, to today’s horrible SE winds. Vito & I headed out not knowing if we would even be able to fish for sturgeon. Regardless, I decided to go there and give it a try!

We arrived and I knew right away that it would be a hold the rod kinda bite! There would be no rod holders today as the boat was sideways and rocking all over the place in these south east winds. I set up and quickly anchored , awaiting the first bite. Too bad it was a nibbler that turned into a red horse sucker! Several moves later and quite a while too, I finally felt the subtle bounce of the rod tip and reared back into the real deal. Vito was about to catch his very first sturgeon!

This fish had some weight but not what I had hoped for. Vito brought it up quickly and I could tell right away that it was only a teen. As he did, it jumped right beside the boat and confirmed my thought on its size. It made a few short runs and fought a bit more, before he brought it back up. Within minutes I tailed his fish and handed it to him for the pics. I really wanted a big one!

We had spent the better part of the morning with not much to show for our efforts and pulling the plug on these fish was on my mind. All of a sudden it was forgotten when I felt another subtle take from a sturgeon and set into heavy weight. This was the one we were looking for!

Vito was handed the rod and he could immediately tell that it was much bigger than the previous one. Not being used to dealing with these sturgeon, he began to pump it up quickly like a salt water fish. As it neared the boat, it completely cleared the water and splashed both of us. It damn near landed in the boat too! After this, the battle began with plenty of line peeling from the reel on its first run. This went on for close to ten minutes and each time he managed to bring it back, the beast turned and took it all out again. Eventually all good things come to an end and I netted it for the pics. I took several and Vito released her back to where she had come from. At least our time spent here wasn’t a total waste with the big SE winds! Now it was time to move on!

Vito had come here for the smallies and we changed up to something smaller. I headed to an area that had been producing recently and on his first cast, he was locked up. It’s never good to catch a fish on your first cast! We soon found this out when he never had another one, through this entire area!

I moved to another place due to the big waves where we were and unfortunately had the same results. One fish was missed right at the boat but the visibility wasn’t great where we were and I pulled the plug quickly. This time I was going deeper and hopefully the fish would be more active there!

The winds were pretty big as I spot locked on this place and instructed Vito on were to cast. He picked up a couple of smaller bass on jigs but not the size I was used to seeing from here. I made a couple of casts and immediately hooked into a big bass. It never fails! We covered a bit of water and Vito managed to get a couple more small bass and I did it again. A short cast behind the boat and I ended up nailing a 24 inch walleye. Again, it never fails!

With the wind direction being our biggest problem, I relocated to another spot and Vito immediately had a fish on. He also continued nailing more bass several casts in a row after. This place had plenty of fish on it and by switching baits he pretty much caught them all. At least the action had picked up!

I had made another move to a shallower area that I thought Vito might get bigger fish from and right on cue, he nailed a nice one. We were even seeing some big bass cruising around and I knew there would be more to come. We probably spent about an hour here and Vito managed to catch a bunch of good ones with a couple in the 4 pound range. There were more fish not interested than he caught and long casts were necessary to hook up. Eventually things died and we moved on.

I had wanted to get a few walleye for dinner with Vito but when I ran to the area that was supposed to be easy, the winds had 3 footers on it. We made several passes and unfortunately only managed one small keeper before we were done. Hopefully tomorrow it will have settled down enough for us to get bit!

I knew that the take out wasn’t going to be fun with the wind blowing right on the ramp. I gave a call to a buddy to give me a hand and between the three of us we got it done quickly. Not without bringing plenty of water over the back of the boat though! The waves were monsters at the boat ramp and it was impossible not to!

Today was a difficult one with lots of moving around to catch the fish. Hopefully tomorrow will be a little bit less windy so that I can get to all the places I wasn’t able to go today. Vito is with me for three days and somewhere along the line we should have a great bite with many more fish coming aboard for him to enjoy. I just have to cut back on my casts and make sure I don’t get to them first!