Last Minute Cancellation Slam

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A last minute cancellation this morning saw Christiane & I heading out before noon. She hasn’t had much time on the water this season with all the bookings I’ve had, but definitely lucked out today!

We began trying for a few walleye but the flat calm conditions didn’t make it easy where we were. No wind equals no current and movement was at a minimum! I was marking schools of perch and many walleye but all we could come up were the perch. One small walleye did get landed but was returned as it didn’t make the cut.

Our second spot was a little better with several smallies being caught and Christiane managed to bring in a good keeper from here as well. I also landed a walleye but it fell short and was returned.

I didn’t want to waste too much time looking for feeding fish and decided to go and try for sturgeon for a couple of hours. It would hopefully be better than the action we were having and a whole lot more relaxing too!

After idling around for a bit, I finally settled in an area where I was marking a few fish. Although not great looking, it was the best I could find! We remained here for almost 20 minutes without even a sniff before I was forced to relocate. The next area also gave up nothing as well and I began the search all over again. I finally settled on one final spot and was glad that I had, when one of the rods received a legitimate bite.

I could tell when I reared back on the fish that it wasn’t big, but it felt nice to actually set the hook on something. Christiane reeled it in with barely any fight and once we saw it beside the boat, we knew why. It was a smaller than usual sturgeon, but at least the right species!

I hadn’t had anymore bites in a while and made one final attempt at locating some fish. We were going to try for ten minutes and call it a day if nothing happened.

Just when I was getting ready to pack it up, I saw a slight twitch on the outside line. Christiane hadn’t seen anything, but I grabbed the rod regardless and waited for the next bite before setting into a little more weight. She finally had something heavier than the one she had caught earlier. I brought the other rod in and just cleaned up while she did battle with her fish.

I had noticed that this one was fighting different than most sturgeon do and once it got close enough to the boat, could see why. As it turned out, this was a big channel catfish and not what we had expected! I think it was the second biggest one that I had seen from these waters too! The boga officially registered it as 14 pounds and several pics were taken before the release. We were officially done for the day!

Without realizing it, Christiane had filled her slam with an unusual trio of fish. We had spent 4 hours on the water and had a relaxing afternoon fishing. Who knows when she will be able to get back out again as my calendar is filling up more & more each day. There’s very few openings left for the remainder of the season and I know I’ll have to disappoint many more people in the weeks to come. In the meantime however, I’ll be on the water as many days as Mother Nature will allow!