Sturgeon Excursion, April 18th and 19th 2009

[katoblake]

green riverpro from mankato will be on the water saturday

[marine_man]

Good luck everyone!

Hopefully this flooding stuff will be over by the first weekend in May and I'll have my shot at them!

marine_man

[MinnesotaMuskie]

A room just opened up at Schusters...it will sleep 5. The Foley Connection had to pull out.

Our loss...hope someone can use the room.

[Gordie]

GOOD LUCK TO ALL that attend wish I could make it but heading up the next weekend for some strugeon fishing in the rainy river

[Casey Sunsdahl]

Good luck guys.. I'll be up there next year for the get together I couldn't make the weekend but I did get my first taste for it this week.. my report is in the RR forum.. Good Times..

PS thanks SurfaceT for the marine band how-to.. good info!

[Team Otter]

First leg of the trip to Grand Rapids has went off without a hitch. Sippin' a cool one on the shores of Pokegama Lake. Headed towards "the destination" ~5:00 am.

[Matt C]

Trouble28 with a 55.5"er - 51 lbs!

[Jim Uran]

Nice Fish thanks for the pic!!!!!!!

[harvey lee]

Thats the type pictures I'm waiting to see. Way to go.

[MinnesotaMuskie]

Nice fish...I am more disappointed then ever that we had to cancel..

Hope you all hd a great time...more pics....

[Matt C]

Shane - Whisker_trout_slayer

Bunt2k

Riverrat56 and Team Otter sturgeon wrangling the double!

No_net and whisker_trout_slayer and the double.

[Team Otter]

WOW! Our group were rookies to this type of fishing but we caught on fairly quick. Friday was slow but by Saturday afternoon, the bite really picked up for us and this morning was "on like donkey kong". A fish on every 10 - 15 minutes was not uncommon within certain time frames. Most our fish were respectable, between 40 - 47" but this morning, we boated an ABSOLUTE GIANT. Fishing in the river was much better than fishing in the bay for us. Thank you to Schuster's for their accomodations and hospitality and it was also meet new FM'ers and chat with those whom I have known but do not get to see very often. What a flippin' awesome trip! We'll definitely be back.

Hooked up...

"The Sturgeon Wrangler"

Recognize our Saturday AM neighbors?

Thumbs up from bunt2k

The Ghost of Rainy River

Check out the color; this fish was absolutely snow white

Lookin' down the barrel of a 45"er

No_Net with a mid-40's from this AM

"I can't move it!"; strike a pose!

"It's spoolin' me. Pull the anchors!"

66" x 32" = ~100 pounds of pure sturgeon; awesome fish PDOGG!

[DTro]

Sweet!!!

Looks like a much nicer day out there this morning.

Something tells me the SouthCentral boys will make that trek again

How does it feel to catch a record PDOGG?

[PDOGG]

Sweet!!!

How does it feel to catch a record PDOGG?

Still hasn't quite sunk in but it was a flippin' blast to fight that beast!!!! I am ruined for any other fish from here on out!!!

[Waters]

That was alot of fun I think we are all hooked now

[Matt C]

Sweet!!!

Something tells me the SouthCentral boys will make that trek again

Yep we are hooked. Team South Central was putting on a clinic..too bad we had to leave today because as Team Otter said, it was on like donkey kong!

Will definitely be back next year!

[slicker]

Just a question for u guys.... when ur lines were in the water how did u keep it free of debris long enough to catch fish? also we were in front of river bend on friday and we had 10 oz of weight on and with all the debris it wouldnt hold so how did u guys manage to hook any?

[harvey lee]

Way to go Team South central and Pdogg, very nice fish.

[KTapper]

I'm going next year!

[Matt C]

Just a question for u guys.... when ur lines were in the water how did u keep it free of debris long enough to catch fish? also we were in front of river bend on friday and we had 10 oz of weight on and with all the debris it wouldnt hold so how did u guys manage to hook any?

We used 4 and 5oz sinkers, and about 8 - 12" leaders. Debris wasn't too much of and issue. Every 10 min or so, pull it up and clean it off.

[riverrat56]

We will deffinatly be back!

I still can't beleive how huge that fish was PDOGG, it was almost unreal to see something of that size come out of the water.

slicker-style of sinker made a huge differnce, 4 and 5 ounce bank sinkers were much better than no-rolls for holding in the heavy current, pyramid sinkers worked well also.

[Surface Tension]

Another great trip!

We heard you guys from up river and figured you got into a nice one. Congrats on the hog. We pulled up to move and you had already left. The guy next to us said a 66"er was just caught from where we set anchor.

We fished 4 mile Fri and part of Sat. With the cold wind and chop on Sat we decided pickup and move to the the river. Conditions there were much nicer and the good part, there where Sturgeon around there too.

Our boat landed 28 sturgeon with the 2 boys doing most of the heavy rod work. We had a wonderful time and the kids got another life time experience, one they said they definitely want to do again.

There was some amount of debris but we don't let lines soak for more then 10 minutes without checking and if you watch your rod tips you can usually detect it. In other words, conditions weren't ideal but very fishable.

A few pictures of a great trip.

Jr's First Sturgeon.

Mark and Nate with Nate's Sturgeon.

Thanks to those and organized this and those that attended.

It was definitely a fun time.

[Shack]

Very cool fish guys! Nice hog PDOGG!

Frank, your boy sure got one heck of a sturg for his first! A big congrates to him!

[harvey lee]

I'll bet Jr was pumped and will be ready for next year.

[Borch]

Very nice fish guys!

All I can say is WOW!!!