I have to say tonight was one of the most unusual nights I’ve ever had sturgeon fishing.
I was fishing with Ray from Cassville, WI and Ray was a Sturgeon virgin. He’s caught some shovels in his neck of the woods, but no Lakers.
Setting the stage. Ray already put 14 sturgeon in the boat along with two channel cats. So he has the routine down.
Then the second to the last fish of the night tippy taps on the rod tip. Ray picks up the rod and starts reeling. Good fish, but not a great fish he says.
Just about a minute after that, this good fish wraps up two lines and the back anchor rope. OK, we manage to get the anchor free and the sturgeon takes off again. Ray starts reeling….and reeling…and reeling. Something broke in the Garcia 6500! Now WHAT?!
Now we had a good size fish on a rod that had two lines tangle up (bad) and a reel that didn’t reel!
Never give up I said! I had Ray cut away the tangled lines and tie off the cut lines to a rod holder for later retrieval.
Then we tied a loop on the end of one line and cut the line of the rod that had the broken reel on..and the fish. After that, it was fishing as normal and we netted the best fish of the evening at 56 inchs.
But now I was down two rods. Too much line was cut off one reel and the other reel didn’t work. But wait!
We still have one line in the water tied to a rod holder! As I started to bring the line in, I thought I felt a head shake. I didn’t like the thought of 80 pound MasterBraid sliding through my fingers! I said “Here Ray, hold this!” LOL!
I grabbed two wooden dowel that we use to pull our hooks and sinkers out of snags with. Ray and I hand-lined him in!
Please trust me when I say a sturgeon on the end of your line that’s wound a few times around a wooden dowel is something that needs to be experience!
Ray’s first fish of the night was a tagged sturgeon that measured 40.5 inches.
We ended the night with 16 sturgeon and two channel cats.
On top of all of this, who would have thought we would have a windless night in the high 50’s in October. She was a perfect night!