Sturgeon trip report

[Kent]

[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]Fished the Snake River, in Idaho, Friday and Saturday with Lundman and Wiperhunter2 for white sturgeon. Wow – what a trip! I caught my largest fish of my life, a 48” sturgeon on Friday. Then on Saturday I hooked one of similar size that got off when it made a jump. A little while later I turned around to see my drag screaming (which is unusual for sturgeon -- they usually bite extremely softly) and I grabbed my pole and gave a jerk and felt the leader snap – reminder to myself never tie two hooks onto the same leader when fishing for large fish – the upper knot weakens the leader too much. Then I tied into the monster! I got a bite that wouldn’t even make a 10” trout proud, but it was definitely a bite, so I gave it a 55-gallon-drum (recommended by Lundman) hook set. My drag immediately started turning. Before the boat was ready to follow the fish I was starting to panic. I have over 200 yards of 30-pound monofilament on my Penn reel, but it was looking like the sturgeon was going to reach the end of the line before we could follow it. Lundman got his boat underway and I was able to gain back some line. It jumped twice shortly after being hooked, and I could see that it was much larger than my 48 incher. I fought that fish for over 40 minutes and I was beginning to wonder whether the fish or I was going to tire first. After fighting it for that long, I was amazed to see it have the energy to leap from the water 75 to 100 feet out from the boat, and do a tail dance and a head shake! We all watched in disbelief as my hook came out of its mouth (barbless hooks are the law) and see my line shoot across the water towards the boat. It is a day later, and I still can’t get the off of my face. My right arm is sore from the battle, but I’ve never had a more enjoyable sore arm. Thanks Lundman for taking time out of your salmon trip to teach Wiperhunter2 and me how to catch those wonderful fish. Bear Lake Mack I now understand even more, when you talk about having big fish mentality, what you mean. After having those huge fighting machines on the end of my line – somehow reeling in those 15 to 20 inch trout at Strawberry just doesn’t sound as much fun anymore. I will leave it to Wiperhunter2 and Lundman to add to the story, except to say that we landed a total of four sturgeon (48”, 47”, 43” and approximately 24 to 30”) and it seemed like we hooked less than 25% of our bites.[/size][/font]

[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]Here is a picture of one of the sturgeon and a monster perch that Wiperhunter2 caught.[/size][/font]

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At this link is a short video clip of me fighting the large sturgeon and it's second jump (it has sound):

[url "http://home.comcast.net/~kjasperson/sturgeon_video.mpg"]http://home.comcast.net/~kjasperson/sturgeon_video.mpg[/url]
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