Part one: Two years ago, I was up at Bonneville and tied into my first oversize sturgeon. I was by myself in a 21 ft Duckworth and had to toss the buoy, start the kicker and fight the fish. (Talk about unprepared!) All while avoiding the other boats that were in the channel. It took me about 30 minutes to crank this sea monster up to the boat.
Part two of this story is about the following years fishing trip. I took my friend Charlie, his 5 year old son and my 10 year old daughter up to the shad racks for the shad run. We put 40+ fish in the boat within 3 yours fishing. We even had the first "triple" I ever experienced.
Charlie saw the pictures of the prior years oversize and wanted to give it a try. We moved and started fishing for oversize using whole, just caught shad. Charlie had three hook-ups in the first 45 minutes but did not get to fight them long. When I had my first hook up, it was doozy! I fought it for about 2 minutes on the starboard side then the line went slack. I figured that I lost her but kept reeling anyway. Charlie was in the driver's seat trying to get the boat turned around and my daughter was in the passenger seat when the fish I was fighting came up less than one foot off the port bow. The fish was about 14 to 18 inches in diameter and cleared the deck by at least 4 feet. I can estimate its length at around 10 feet.
It arched backwards over the bow and back into the water. The breach cut the line on the keel and she was gone. I only saw her for a moment but the mental snapshot of that moment will stay with me for the rest of my life.
This pic is of the first one.
My newbie story (with pic)
jr sherwood
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