Long & Lean Beasts
September 26, 2020
Rick & Danny were here for three days and today they were looking for some giants. Hopefully the fish would cooperate with the winds from the NE. We were about to find out soon!
The run to our starting spot was a roller coaster ride! Waves were 2 to 3 footers and rolled like Lake Ontario. It was going to be interesting holding in these conditions as they were opposite the flow.
Once I located some fish, we used the electric motor to anchor up and surprisingly it was fine. We had to hold the rods however as the boat was bouncing way too much to use the rod holders.
Not long into the day I felt a bite and set into something. Danny was up first and took the rod only to reel in a massive drum! It was definitely bigger than any other he had caught before. Rick was up next and his brother set into something a little more substantial in weight. Danny gave the rod to him and he did battle for quite some time. Although it never jumped, it did put up a great fight making 8 long runs. This was the most any sturgeon had ever taken before! I eventually netted the fish and despite not being thick it made up for it in length. It was a really long male and definitely worthy of several pics before the release!
We reset the lines awaiting our next bite and Rick returned the favour, by setting into another beast. Danny was about to do battle with one even larger than the previous fish he had hooked!
The males always seem to hug the bottom while fighting and this was exactly what his fish was doing. The fight lasted almost 15 minutes and had a number of long runs as well. When I was finally able to slide the net under the sturgeon, we realized why. It was a real long fish! Danny held it for a few pics and off she went to fight another day. I still don’t know why anyone would want to kill one of these creatures!
We remained in the same general area and made a couple of moves trying to locate more active monsters. Four more of them came out to play but they were all somewhat smaller than the first two dinosaurs! Eventually we decided to leave as the winds had increased and we wanted to try for other species before the day ended.
Well the last 90 minutes didn’t turn out as I had planned with only a few fish biting. I was marking plenty of walleye on the bottom but with the big NE winds, was unable to get anything going. We eventually ran out of time and called it a day! Tomorrow we will likely focus our attention on smaller fish, but maybe we’ll drop the sticks in and try for a different kind of beast as well. We’ll just have to wait and see what the day brings. Today was a success and I hope the next two are equally as good as the first!
