Perfect Fall Weather
October 11, 2022
What happens when 2 out of three days on a long weekend have foul weather? The third one has everybody out fishing! Today was no exception, despite the chilly start to the day, as everybody hit the water with their boats. Our first stop for sturgeon proved that as the place was just loaded. I had a rough time getting to the area I wanted to be, but managed to hold close by with plenty of room from the nearest boat.
Mike was in from California and although he had caught a few sturgeon before, they were all small. Hopefully today that would change as we were in the land of the giants! It wasn’t long before we had some action from one of the two rods and his first Canadian sturgeon came into the boat. It wasn’t the one I was looking for but he was officially on the board!
The next couple of fish were significantly larger by his standards, but still on the smaller side by mine. Although they were the largest ones he had ever landed I still wanted him to fight one of the beasts. After several more medium ones, I finally got my wish when I reared back on some weight. This one was going to do the others justice as he was about to find out!
Mike fought the sturgeon like he had been battling big fish all his life. It was nice to have someone in the boat that knew how to fight a fish by using the rod properly. Despite several long runs, this one never breached and it wasn’t until he had the fish close to the boat that we knew how big it actually was. This would definitely be his biggest by far! Minutes later I had his fish in the net and readied him for the pics. As difficult as it was, he was able to lift the beast out of the net and hold it for a few shots before the release. To say he was happy would have been an understatement!
I reset the lines and we went right back to fishing for more of these monsters! Fortunately there were others and eventually Mike reeled into another one with big weight. He had officially taken control right from the bite and hooked into his own fish once again. This time however, it wasn’t a small or medium sized fish but rather a large one! Soon into the battle the line started to come up and we both got to see what he was doing battle with as she breached. Definitely some big weight there!
The fight lasted over ten minutes and this fish really took out some line. At one point the counter reached well over 150 before he was able to turn the fish and begin gaining line. Each run got shorter and shorter until eventually I was able to slip the net under his catch to end the battle. By now he knew the drill and how to hold it for the pics. We made short order of this and returned to fishing quickly.
Plenty of other good sized sturgeon were landed afterwards and we decided to call it here and try for some walleye before the end. I packed everything up and headed to where I knew he would have his best chance. We spent over an hour or so making a few drifts and boated a dozen or so keepers. The perfect end to an already perfect day!
Mike couldn’t have ordered better weather for his day of fishing. Although cool in the morning, it warmed up just nicely and the lack of wind with sunshine made it the picture perfect fall day. Oh yeah, the fish cooperated too! Great day all around!
