Big Waves & Big Fish

Garnet, Matt, John & Curtis were with me again today for their annual meet up. I gave them the option to cancel at the water due to the big winds and ever bigger winds to come, but they wanted to go regardless. Sure glad they made that decision!

Although I had planned to start with sturgeon, the big waves would have made it difficult to hold and even tougher to see the bites. Instead I decided that we were going to drift & dropshot over large flats, looking for bass & walleye.  I set up the rods and let the winds move us to see which direction I was going to use and after a few minutes, had them drop down.

The first few drifts over one of the flats didn’t produce but on the third place, they began to hook up. Matt managed to get a couple of decent ones into the bot and the walleye went right into the livewell for him to take home. I had everyone on different baits and after Matt landed the third fish, I decided to switch them all to the same thing. Curtis wasted no time bringing in the next walleye and the others soon followed. With each drift there were multiple hookups had and more fish were livewelled! I’m not sure how many passes we made but it was a lot! Eventually the bites got fewer and by 1:30 I decided to pull the plug and head elsewhere. The winds hadn’t really gotten any worse and we were going to try for a sturgeon bite, if we could hold!

Once I arrived at the area to fish, I set everything up and began the search. The waves were a good 2 to 3 foot most of the time and I even had to have a couple of the guys stand up front to keep the bow down. Lines in and the wait felt like forever. I checked the baits a few times and every once in a while they were still there. Most of the time however, the nibblers had stolen the worms without even being noticed on the rods. The winds were bouncing the boat quite a bit even with two people weighing the bow down.  It was said that Garnet was to take the first fish and Curtis would have the second one. Now all I had to do was find a couple of volunteers! Garnet was passed the rod after I reeled into a small fish and he landed a perch. Not what were after but at least I knew that the fish would bite here.

We had relocated a few times with all the pesky nibblers and were talking about going back to where we had fished earlier in the day for the walleye. I thought I would make one more attempt at finding a big fish and searched around until I did finally locate a good one. A last attempt at one bite would be made and we would remain anchored for no more than 10 minutes. About three minutes in, I saw the rod bounce and was shocked. I quickly grabbed it and felt the bite again. I immediately reared back and bent the rod on the hookset. I could tell by the weight that this was a giant and handed it over to Curtis to do battle this beast.

Well the fight lasted over 15 minutes with multiple long runs and one huge attempt at a breach. The fish was coming up fast right beside the boat and at the last second, turned underneath the boat. I think it would have either landed in or even hit the boat if it had of continued. From there, it made a straight line sizzling run right to the bottom. Curtis pumped the fish up several times and each time it went right back. Eventually however, he managed to get it up to the surface where I was able to net it and the battle was over. I took several pics with him and even a group photo showing its overall size before they released it back to the water. After this, we were officially done for the day!

I was definitely glad that they decided to fish today, despite the big waves and gusting winds. It may not have been an easy day but it was definitely rewarding. In the end they took 10 fish home and finished off with a bang. The beast of a sturgeon was just icing on the cake! A well-deserved reward for the time we put in today in these adverse conditions!!