Sturgeon First Timers

After last week’s outing for smallies, Felix was back again today hoping for a big bite. He also brought Shane and the two of them headed out with me for an afternoon of sturgeon fishing. I only hoped the fish would cooperate!

We were set up before noon and despite the lack of fish marking I still managed to get the first bite, with only a couple of moves. Shane took the rod after I set into some weight and the fish quickly went airborne! A little coaching on how to fight the sturgeon and he was battling it like a champ. Another jump later it dogged on the bottom, under the boat. It never really took out much line, just held on the bottom. Shane had to do the sturgeon shuffle multiple times as the fish continuously went from one side to the other. It was definitely a strange battle but he was able to bring it up for me to net in about ten minutes. Some pictures were taken and the fish was sent back on its way.

I reset the lines in hopes of getting Felix into another one and we eagerly awaited the bite. Too bad it had to be a red horse sucker though and no pics were taken for this one!

Several moves later I did manage to set into a decent fish and Felix finally got his turn at battling a good one. His also took to the air and we could see that it was smaller than the previous one caught by Shane. This one however made multiple runs taking plenty of line off the reel. I think it actually fought better than the larger one earlier in the day! About 5 minutes later I slid the net under his catch and many pics were taken before the release.

I really wanted to get them into something much larger and spent a bunch of time idling around in search of big marks. I did find a few but they just didn’t seem to want to bite! In the end, we managed one more sturgeon but it was a juvenile and Felix had the honour of reeling it in.

Their trip had passed by so quickly as do all half day outings and after the last fish, we were done. I was thankful for the conditions and lack of wind but I would have liked a few more big bites. At least they both got to do battle with a sturgeon and some really powerful fights. Mission accomplished!!