Multiple Firsts

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Wilma, Ronnie and their son Daniel joined me today for another mixed bag outing. With the winds light I decided to try for a big bite early and headed to fish for sturgeon. I had hoped to get at least one before switching over to another species.

The bottom looked almost void of fish and I spent more time idling around before I finally settled on a few marks. Lines went in and as usual lately, we were nibbled to death by small fish. In fact, I even managed to catch one of the culprits!

I had been forced to relocate a few times and beginning to lose faith in the possibility of a bite when one of the rods began to bounce. I grabbed it quickly and was into some decent weight on the hook set.  Daniel was passed the rod and I instructed him on how to fight the fish. It was definitely the biggest thing he ever had on the end of the line and I wanted to see him to land it.

After clearing the area I guided him a little more and saw the line begin to rise. They were about to see what he was hooked up to as it breached behind the boat. Although not a true giant, it was still a very good one! Line peeled from the reel as the sturgeon took almost 75 feet out in just one run. Daniel was enjoying fighting a big fish and also tiring at the same time. He did manage to reel almost all the line back to the boat just before the fish went into a crazy spiralling and tangled itself. Now he was bringing it in, backwards! I tried to untangle the line when he had it to the boat but it was all tied up. Instead I just netted his fish and unwrapped it in the net. This thing was still full of energy so I set it free to finish the fight.

Daniel was tired from the battle and his father decided to take the rod from him. All was good with the sturgeon wearing itself out enough to almost be netted one more time. Unfortunately this is where it went wrong! Ronnie allowed the fish to go around the motor and tangled the line in the ladder afterwards. By the time I saw what had happened, it was too late. The fish had snapped the heavy braid, leaving us with nothing. First time in all the years of fishing sturgeon fishing that this had ever happened! I didn’t want to continue after this and packed everything up and went for bass instead!

We spent several hours drifting deep water and everyone had lots of chances. Unfortunately due to many different reasons, only a handful of them were caught. Although the bass were a good size, they only managed to bring about 25% of them to net. We remained on this technique for a while longer and eventually went back to try for sturgeon one more time. The winds were still down and it was early afternoon but they wanted to give it another go!

I idled over the area and found a small concentration to set up on. It didn’t take long before one of the rods bounced and I was tight to a fish. I knew it wasn’t huge so I passed it to Wilma and instructed her on what to do. It fought like a big one, screaming line from the reel and even breached once for all to see! After 5 minutes or so she brought it close enough for me to net. Now she would have to hold it for the pics!

We shot several pics and Wilma released her fish to where it belonged. I still don’t know why anyone would kill one of these things! I tried for a while longer to see if we could get into more but without success. Time to pull the plug and go for another species, elsewhere!

There was limited time remaining in the day and I decided to hit an area that I hadn’t fished in a while. The winds were good enough for a drift and I was sure there would be fish there! Almost immediately, Wilma was into a good one but too much slack was in the line and she lost it as it took to the air. Ronnie locked up at the same time and he managed to bring in a jumbo perch. I was seeing all kinds of fish marking and made several passes over the area to see if they could get bit. They did, but almost all were either missed or lost! I dropped in quickly and also landed a jumbo perch! Kinda wish I had of kept the first one too!

In the last 15 minutes we drifted over a section that produced two more bass for Wilma and Daniel before we were done. I had arrived at this area a little too late as I wish I could have refined it a little longer. In the end we finished with a bang and I packed everything up for the run back.

Today was an interesting one with plenty of opportunities for everyone. They did manage to bring several of them into the boat though and that’s all that counts. In the end they left satisfied and landed some of the biggest bass they had ever caught, along with a couple of fish they had never seen. I call that another successful day of fishing!