helluva ride

fishboy5 · 06-21-2003, 01:00 PM

My grandpa and myself went out with Erik's World Class Fishing Adventure. It was one helluva great ride. We were sturgeon fishing, and it was at its finest. Once we got out on the water, it was non-stop action until it we were done. Once we got set up, it must have been a whole ten minutes before we got a bite. Fish On! and then i lost it. But no big deal, we ended up letting about 5 or 6 keepers go. And then there were all the shakers. I think that there were 4 or 5 fish hooked while i was trying (vainly) to bring in a 7 footer. We got him up to the boat, and he only had the hook in the very corner of his mouth. When Eric and his guide friend tried to haul him in, he slipped the hook. But oh well. It was one awesome day fishing and we ended up with a couple really nice fish. Eric was great (he listened to all of my grandpa's old stories) and was a lot of fun. My grandpa is slightly disabled, but Eric got him into and out of the boat okay. I would recommend him any day, he knows his stuff.

One thing that I know was very frustrating for him, as it's happened to me, occured on our trip. We moved to a different hole down river a bit when the action slowed at the first. As soon as we had a fish on, we also had a half dozen boats sharing the spot. That wasn't that bad, but pretty soon, several of the people were broadcasting the spot on the radio. Eric got onto the radio, and in as polite a manner as possible, told them what he thougt. Then when we moved to re-anchor (we had drifted), a boat shot into the spot that we were trying to get back into. It was obvious that we were'nt leaving, but they moved into the spot anyway.

When we were getting ready to re-anchor we noticed a little bouy in the water. It was under the water line a couple of inches, so we decided to see what it was. We knew it wasn't a crab pot, but couldn't think of what else. So after a bit of pulling, along comes a circle hook. Then a foot later another, and another, and after about 15' of these, we come across a sturgeon one of of these hooks. It was a little one, but it had obviously been there a while. We cut him off, and kept pulling. Eventually we pulled up what must have been 100' of rope, all with circle hooks along it. That ticks me off. I don't think that those should be used at all, but this one was just left there, and with a live sturgeon on it. Why the hell it wasn't retrieved, I don't know, but it never should have been out there. It very well may have belonged to poachers, being as the float was below the water line at the end of outgoing tide, and the bouy wasn't marked, either.

[ 06-21-2003, 06:11 PM: Message edited by: STGRule ]

Fish Hawg · 06-21-2003, 01:29 PM

Sounds like you had a great trip with alot of action

David Johnson · 06-21-2003, 01:42 PM

Sounds like you had a great trip, congrats [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]

That set line was probably the Fish & Wildlife's and they were catching and tagging sturgeon, although they should have their bouys marked.

Also, it is illegal to remove a 7 foot sturgeon from the water, if that's what you guys were doing

Quote:

When Eric and his guide friend tried to haul him in, he slipped the hook

STGRule · 06-21-2003, 03:54 PM

David: Fish and Wildlife used groundline with ganions that snap onto the line. They have large orange bouys that are marked and that say research.

fishboy5 · 06-21-2003, 06:45 PM

He wasn't trying to get it into the boat (i don't think that he could have) we were just trying to get it up alongside the boat to take pictures and get the hook out.
That line had been there for a long time. None of the hooks hadbait left on them, and the sturgeon that was on it had been there for quite a while. the line also had stuff growing all along it.

Fish Hawg · 06-21-2003, 06:58 PM

Fishboy5 you have a Private message

Tilla · 06-21-2003, 07:02 PM

I saw Erik buying ice cream at the Texaco at 4:15 am, is that part of his secret bait treatment?

David Johnson · 06-21-2003, 10:11 PM

fishboy5, that's good to hear they weren't takeing the fish out of the water and it's bad to hear that was an old setline.

Tilla, didn't you know icecream is one of the staple foods of a guide?

fishboy5 · 06-22-2003, 11:44 PM

Not sure that the ice cream was part of the secret bait, he forgot it in the truck. Quick fisher, sorry can't tell u where we were, and I don't know how deep we were.