When you get my brother and 2 of his childhood friends together… they will make you laugh until your face hurts!! Which tends to lead to some late night shenanigans. “Let’s be on the river at 6:30 am… okay never mind 8am…” LOL. The day before we couldn’t decide if we wanted to fish for walleye, salmon, or sturgeon. The decision was made. We are gonna fish for some dinosaurs, aka White sturgeon. My brother has caught some monsters in the past. The biggest being about 12 feet long. Him and a buddy caught in while in an 11 foot boat, that’s how they knew how big it was. That sturgeon took them 3-4 miles down the river before it got tired and gave up the fight.
A couple years ago I reeled in a 4 foot sturgeon and I thought that was a big fish. Now I’ve seen tons of pictures of these giant white sturgeon but when you get one next to the boat… it’s a totally different story.
After trying a couple different holes where my brother has caught them before, we went up river. Anchored the boat just below McNary Damn.
My brother yells,
“This is a good one!!”
Then passes to pole to Mikey B,
“WHOA HOLY SH!#”
I quickly unhook from the anchor and let this giant do what he wants with us. My brother fires up the kicker motor and steers the boat in an attempt to stay right over the top of the fish. He took us down river a little ways but not too far.
That’s McNary Damn off in the distance
As my brother coached them how to properly reel one of the monsters up, everyone was guessing on the size. Waiting anxiously to see this how big this white sturgeon is. After about 45 minutes it was close enough to see its “shadow” in the water.
That’s a Big Fish!!!
It’s against the law to keep them when they are this big. Also their is only certain times of the year when you can keep sturgeon and they can only be a within certain length. The giant ones are off limits all the time. Catch and release only!!
It dove down one more time but only about 20 feet. Then it finally called it quits and let us pull him up to the surface.
That’s when everyone started hootin’ and hollerin’ !!
It was almost like this monster turned so I could take a good photo of his face.
Once to the surface you gotta roll them on their back and stick your hands in its mouth and grab on tight. Then get the hook out. White sturgeon are a bottom feeder. Just like those little sucker fish you have in aquariums only slightly bigger. Their mouth/lips actually extends out quite a ways. Kind of nasty if you ask me. With 2 hands in its mouth there was still plenty of room for a third. I bet it’s mouth was about 18 inches wide. Being that he has caught plenty of these before, my brother said it was about 8-9 feet in length.
It’s nose is the size of a grown man’s head!!
After getting the hook out they tried to get his whole body up next to the boat so we could really see how massive this white sturgeon is. My brother said, “Hold on tight!! He might fight again. If he does just let go!”. That is one powerful fish!! Sure enough just as they were getting him moved around, this powerful fish gave one last fight and off he went into the depths of the Columbia River.
What an experience!! My brother is an avid fisherman. The rest of us… not so much. So to be able to see one of these up close was something we will never forget. According to this age chart I looked up online, the estimated age of this white sturgeon is around 50 years old. That beast has been living in the Columbia River 10 years longer than I have been on the Earth… *Crazy!!
It took us about 4 hours to catch one but man oh man was it worth it!! Time to head back and get everything cleaned up then drive back home and take a much needed nap.
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