Sturgeon Excursion 2006 Highlights!!!

[hanson]

Hey folks!

Some of us are fresh back from the big Sturgeon Excursion on Lake of the Woods. Some guys are still up there fighting big fish. This trip is probably going to be one of the highlights of the year for me already. There were some big fish caught and plenty of fish and excitement to go around considering how many boats were packed into 4 Mile Bay and the Rainy River.

My trip, like many, started when my alarm clock awoke me at 3:30am last Friday morning. Papa Grump (Brian) & Dtro (Darren) would be picking me up for the long ride up to Lake of the Woods from the Twin Cities. Of course we were anxious to get on the water and hoped to be fishing by noon.

We pulled into Schuster's Resort and were greeted to a crowd of FM guys arriving and heading out fishing already. We quickly unloaded our gear into the cabin and headed to the public access near Wheeler's Pt to launch the RiverPro.

Once on the water, I spotted "I Da Man" almost immediately and cruised over to see how they'd been doing. Thats the great thing about these FM Gatherings, there are always people around to talk to and bounce ideas off of. They had landed a few fish in the 40" range but nothing big yet. Since there were a number of boats in 4 Mile Bay already, we tried to find an opening and anchor up.

Here's a photo of what the bay looked like for the weekend.

Can you believe that many people showed up to fish Lake Sturgeon?? Crazy!!

Sturgeon fishing is very basic, nightcrawler on the bottom, so we tossed out our baits and waited. It really didn't take that long to hook into some fish but hooking into the fish we wanted to catch took awhile. We caught a number of nice redhorse suckers, white suckers, along with this real nice looking eelpout. Although it doesn't look like Darren was too happy to see this fish in the boat.

dtro with a LOW Eelpout

Although that freaked out look changed to the "Oh my God!" look when this fish slurped his nightcrawler off of the bottom!

dtro with a 61" Lake of the Woods Lake Sturgeon!!

Darren hooked into that 61 incher earlier in the afternoon on Friday so we hadn't been fishing all that long. We had caught a few sturgeon around 40 inches that truly impressed us with their fight but the 61 incher put up a fight like nothing else, it absolutely wouldn't come off of the bottom. For those of you that know us, we were geared up to fish these fish with 8-9' fiberglass catfish rods with Garcia 7000s spooled with 80lb PowerPro and you still couldn't show those fish who was boss. In my opinion, if you are looking to fish sturgeon, do not use any tackle lighter than what we were using. Darren had that fish on for over 15 minutes and it managed to wrap around the anchor rope twice which caused an intense scramble but we still managed to get it aboard.

Here's dtro fighting that fish!! Awesome!!

Remember, that is heavy catfishing gear!

OK... Take a deep breath now! That was exciting and would prove to be our boat's biggest fish for the weekend and possibly the biggest fish taken by any member of the FM crew at the Excursion.

Darren & Brian had the hot rods in the boat and continued to catch fish throughout the afternoon. I did not catch a single fish on Friday, but hey, someone has to net the things right? And I would like to let everyone know that my netting success ratio was at 100%.

As many of you may know, the DNR has been intensively studying these fish for years. Nobody was out in the bay today tagging fish and collecting data but we did manage one sturgeon that was tagged.

Papa Grump with the tagged Sturgeon

Notice the tag near the dorsal fin. Cool!

We headed off the lake about supper time and ran into all the other FM guys back at Schuster's Resort for drinks, supper, and a little story telling. We had a good time but also wanted to hit the sack fairly early to get on the lake shortly after sun up. Afterall, I hadn't caught a sturgeon yet and looked like I might need all the time I could get.

Saturday morning rolls around and we're heading back to the same spot we fished Friday. I marked a waypoint in my Lowrance H2Oc and were heading back to the same spot when we spotted Curt Quesnell's boat sitting there. Hmmm... We exchanged a few words in fun and anchored near them.

Brian and I were joking around about how Darren had the hot rod yesterday and who was going to get all the luck today when something tapped Darren's rod. We were only out fishing for about half hour when this one hit and Darren proceeded to pull in this really nice looking 48 incher.

Darren had the magic touch again with this 48" Lake Sturgeon!

Anyway, it took awhile but I finally latched into one of them little buggers. And little is the appropriate term as well.

Here's me with my 1st Sturgeon of the trip

And then the waiting game commenced. The fish pretty much shut down. None of the boats around us were pulling in fish either and lots of folks were moving around to no avail. But what a great day to be on the water! The wind stayed down enough and we had clear, bright skies all day. That is until I noticed I was starting to sunburn on my face. Not just me either. Darren, Brian, and myself all got wicked sunburns and I had forgotten the suntan lotion back at the cabin. Ooops!!

About the time I was ready to say its quittin' time. Darren had another tap on his rod and set the hook into something good. I immediately proceeded to pull up the rear anchor while Darren was yelling at me to catch the fish for him. We argued for a little bit and I ended up with the fishing rod in my hands. So I guess I lost that argument, eh? I hadn't caught anything over 5 pounds all weekend and it suddenly felt like I had moby Dick on the end of the line! Unreal! I really can't begin to explain how I felt about this fish because this (Contact US Regarding This Word) will happen. LOL!!

I had the fish on for about 30 minutes or so and my arms were burning. Every time I made some progress, it pulled drag right back out again. We did this back and forth thing forever until it finally surfaced and (Contact US Regarding This Word) happened again. Because we practiced this a few times, Darren netted the head of the fish and Brian grabbed the tail and this big ole' girl was in the boat. A quick pull of the tape and I yelled out 58" to all the boats who were eager to learn how big the fish was. We took some photos and that had to get a weight as this sturgeon was very, very girthy! Our first attempt bottomed out the 50lb scale so we pulled out the 65lb scale to get a weight of 53lbs! Yikes!

Here's me with my biggest fish ever- 53 lbs, 58" Lake Sturgeon!

Thanks Darren, you didn't have to give me your rod ya know!

And here's one last parting shot that I will be remembering for quite some time!

I would like to thank Dennis Steele & I Da Man (Briank) for organizing this great little gathering! It was one of the best that I have been to in a long time! Schuster's Resort also deserves a big Thank You for opening their doors and welcoming us! They come highly recommended in my book!

I would also like to thank all the other FM guys who came up and made this trip a lot of fun.

Let's hear some more stories, fish tales, and photos!!

[grab the net]

Great story and the pictures were awesome. What a fantastic way to start the open water year.

[rushing]

Looks like a good time! Thanks for rubbin it in.

Awesome fish!!!

[I Da Man]

I tell ya what...we were anchored a football field or so up stream of Hanson's 53 lb battle...It was a sight to see!

Many people in our group caught the largest fish of their life time!

Even with all the boats out there...the area could have supported another 100 boats without infringing on others...easy fishing!

Great report Hanson!

[I Da Man]

Almost forgot...who was the FMer playing Johnny Cash all the time?

[hanson]

Quote:

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Almost forgot...who was the FMer playing Johnny Cash all the time?

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Not sure but our boat kept yelling "I like Tator Tots!"

[Anti PETA Guy]

NICE!!!!

[smallie_hawgin]

Well, with myself and BLB being bass nuts, we decided to do some casting first on a coulple tribs... nothing to huge but BLB managed a 35" inch snot rocket...

Sunday was good for us. two fish @ 55.5" and another @ 50"

A good time and some good memories. Will probably do it again next year for sure....

[Tyler Holm]

All in all, we had a great trip. We ended the weekend with 19 sturgeon, and several eel pout and suckers. I had a tremendous time and would like to thank everyone involved in setting this thing up.

We fished Friday night, but only ended up with suckers. On Saturday were where “that boat” for about 4 hours. We put on a show putting 14 sturgeon in the boat in 4 hours. It didn’t take the crowd long to gather around and the fishing to slow. Those were the best 4 hours of fishing I’ve had a in a long time.

Our biggest was 52” followed by a 43” After that our average size fell considerably with several in the mid 30’s

We did end up with 1 tagged fish.

52"er

Wow is this ever FUN!

This eagle came and stole a fish from these gulls and they got [PoorWordUsage]ed and chased it away

Kiss goodbye till next year!