One hundred and thirty pounds of white sturgeon for
Doug
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On Sunday afternoon 1st June 2003 Sue, my wife,
and I flew into Vancouver Airport in Canada's British Columbia to
start our six day holiday to fish for the White Sturgeon that inhabit
the Fraser River. This was the first time we had been to Canada
and we were looking forward to the challenges in front of us, we
hoped!
We were met at the airport by Verne, our guide's
stepfather, who is a real character. We chatted with Verne and got
a feel for the place while he drove us for the one and a half hours
through some beautiful countryside to our hotel in a place called
Chilliwack.
Marc Laynes pride and joy a jet-powered, custom-built
all aluminum boat
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This is a lovely small town right
by the Fraser River and where our guide Marc Laynes of Cascade
Fishing Adventures lives. Verne told us that Marc would come to the hotel
in the morning to collect us at 08.30hrs for our first day on
the river. So all that was left for us to do was to have a shower,
go for a meal and get a good night's sleep and contemplate the
days to come.
Marc promptly arrived the next morning to
collect us and he too is a great character, making us very
welcome and making sure that we had everything we need for
the trip ahead. He picked us up in his 8 litre Ford diesel
pickup truck with his pride and joy behind; a custom built
all aluminum jet boat powered with a V8 engine. These boats
don't have a propeller, they suck water in underneath and
pump a large jet out of the back to power them along, it is
absolutely amazing the speed they can travel at, but it also
has very comfortable seating for the passengers which is as
well as you spend approximately 8 hours a day on the boat.
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We headed
upriver |
As
he drove the short distance to the boat launch we chatted away
getting to know one another. He has done a lot of work for the
fisheries department, studying the White Sturgeon in great
detail and is a leading authority on these fantastic fish. He
is also an angler himself and has caught many of them up to
800lbs in weight whilst doing the survey. He is also a
conservationist, caring very much for the river and its
inhabitants. These fish are totally protected and every fish
that is caught is measured and tagged, if not tagged already.
The tags used are inserted under the skin behind the head and
are the same type that we use for tagging our pet dogs and
cats. Once in they are there forever. The White Sturgeon can
grow to a length of 18 to 20 feet and weigh as much as
1800lbs.
We arrived at the boat launch and launched the boat and it
was only now that we realised what a big powerful river the
Fraser is. As we headed up river a short distance to our first
spot of the day Marc started to tell us about the way we would
fish and what to expect on the day. When we arrived he dropped
the anchor and told us about the tackle we would be using.
Tackle
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and only then realised what a big,
powerful river the Fraser
is
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Rods are 9ft
long with a test curve of approximately six pounds, similar to
an uptide rod but with an all through action. The reels were
large multipliers backed with heavy nylon and topped off with
300 metres of 160lb breaking strain braided main line. This
might seem very heavy but when you actually fish the river and
catch some of these fish you can understand why such line
strength is necessary. The terminal tackle is very simple,
being a link swivel running on the line to clip the leads
onto, which allows the leads to be removed easily before
lifting a fish into the boat. The link swivel is stopped by a
bead against the swivel that joins the mainline to the hook
trace which is 80lb breaking strain nylon. At the end of this
is a 7/0 stainless steel barbless hook. The leads vary in
weight from a few ounces up to 1lb, depending where on the
river you fish and how fast the current is, because the Fraser
is a very fast river in places.
Bait and a ball game……
The bait was Brook Lamprey, usually three were put on the
hook and then tied round the shank of the hook with some thin
cotton. We also used sections of Sea Lamprey and also Salmon
roe; the latter was placed into a piece cut off a pair of
black tights, made into a small ball about the size of a golf
ball, put on the hook and then some roe was tied around this
with cotton to secure it in place. Now that caused a few
frowns and laughs when Marc pulled a pair of these out. "Hang
on a minute, I’m not into that game!" I said.
Now, would the sturgeon be interested?
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Not the biggest I was to catch, but my first,
which made it
special
| The hooks
were baited and finally put out to the spots and the rods
placed in the holders. All we could do now was wait to see if
the sturgeon were interested. While we were waiting Marc
explained how a bite would look and I was surprised how
delicately these fish bite, showing only very gentle taps on
the rod tip.
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A nice one at 4ft
6 long
| Marc
explained that when this happens you have to take the rod out
of the holder and lower the rod slightly to take the tension
out of the line, and then the Sturgeon should start to move
off with the bait. When this happens you don’t strike in the
usual accepted manner but sweep the rod back and hook into the
fish. However, if the fish swims towards you, then you reel
into it, only pulling the rod round when you actually feel the
fish.
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The biggest of Day 1 at
55lb | We did not
have to wait long for the tell-tale taps to appear on one of
the rods, so I lifted it out of the holder and waited to feel
the rod go over. I then pulled into the fish, which shot off
on a short run at an alarming rate, but within a few minutes I
had landed my first White Sturgeon. Although only a small one
it gave a good account of itself and its colours were
absolutely stunning. They looked like an opal in the sunlight
with all the colours of the rainbow from different angles and
I could not wait to play another one. Marc told us that on
average we should catch five fish a day but we would have to
wait to see how things panned out. But sure enough, by the end
of the first day we had boated five fish with the biggest at
55lbs. This fish took some 80yds of line on its first run and
came right out of the water twice, which was an awesome sight.
We hooked several other fish during the day but they are
experts at getting rid of the hooks. Marc said he was
disappointed with the result and could not understand why so
many fish picked the bait up only to drop it within seconds,
but apparently this is what they sometimes do so you just have
to persevere and be patient, which was very easy to do when
fishing in such beautiful surroundings.
Day Two
The second day was much like the first. We fished a
different area of the river and landed a few fish and lost a
few but they were still being very finicky. At the end of day
two Marc said he would take us to his favourite part of the
river the next day and hopefully the Sturgeon there would be
more obliging.
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The symbol of Hope the town's Prospector
and Mule
| Day
Three and some spectacular scenery and wildlife
Marc picked us up at 8.00am and we set off for a town
called Hope further up the Fraser valley. This town was the
start of the Gold Rush in this part of Canada and is portrayed
with a wood carving showing a prospector and his mule. We
arrived at the boat launch about thirty minutes later and set
off up river, which was surrounded by some of the most
spectacular scenery I have seen in my life, with snow-capped
mountains rolling right down to the riverbank. There was also
a lot of different wildlife, including seals, otters, deer,
bald eagles and osprey, which made the day even more
interesting.
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Spectacular scenery above the town of
Hope | We caught
one or two fish in different spots going upriver and saw
Sturgeon to about 300lbs rolling through the surface, which is
an awesome sight when a fish of that size lazily rolls a few
feet away from the boat. Unfortunately it happened so quickly
we couldn’t get any photographs of it and the fish were still
being very finicky.
We arrived at our final spot for the day, put the rods out
and sat back, waiting, and in the meantime watching a few fish
roll. Eventually I had a good take and was into a fish that
just tried to pull my arms out of their sockets. It took about
70yds of line on its way up river, came back and then set off
again. Marc couldn’t understand why it hadn’t jumped clear of
the water as they generally do very soon after being hooked.
He was beginning to wonder if it was foul hooked.
The fight was a dogged affair but the power of these fish
is unbelievable. But after 20 minutes I managed to get it to
the surface and we could see that it was cleanly hooked in the
mouth. Marc removed the lead and told me what to do to get the
fish into the boat and safely into the stretcher that he
carries to put the fish into. The fish was checked for tags
and it had an old tail tag in it from 1997 and had not been
caught since. So Marc duly measured the fish and inserted a
new tag behind its head and then after a few pictures she was
released none the worse for her experience. She was a
beautiful long nose specimen and weighed 90lbs.
A visit to a rare spot on day four
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The long nose
90 pounder
| We
fished some of the spots we had fished previously and caught a
few and lost a few fish during the day but no big fish put in
an appearance apart from rolling near the boat, much to our
frustration. To end the day Marc decided as a last ditch
effort to go to a spot he only fishes on rare occasions. We
arrived and anchored the boat in about 25ft of water and put
the rods out. Within minutes the tell-tale knocks started and
stopped just as quickly. After about half an hour we decided
to call it a day so I picked the left hand rod up and,
remembering what Marc had told me on day one, not to just pick
the rod up but pull it round just in case a fish was sitting
with a bait in its mouth, which apparently is quite a common
occurrence. As I pulled the rod round everything was solid. I
told Marc I was snagged, which he said was odd because there
were no snags there. “Pull hard,” he said. “It must be a fish
sitting with the bait in its mouth.”
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The head of the
90-pounder | I did
as I was told and then all hell broke lose as the fish came
straight to the surface like a dolphin and then proceeded to
power across the river, taking nearly 300yds of line off the
reel in under 60 seconds. Marc was frantically pulling the
anchor up, asking me all the time what was happening and just
before the knot that joins the braid to the nylon went out he
got the boat engine fired up and in reverse and chased after
the fish.
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The stunningly beautiful short nose, 6ft 3in,
130lb sturgeon | I
slowly gained the line back that the fish had taken on the
first run when off it went again and jumped clean out of the
water. Then it headed back upstream. At one stage it was
swimming upstream so fast against the current Marc had to
speed the boat up quite a lot to stop it overtaking us. Marc
asked how big I thought it was because he had not seen it so I
told him I thought it was bigger than the one I caught
yesterday. After some 25 minutes the fish eventually surfaced
and Marc managed to remove the lead but, because the current
in the river where we were was so strong, we had to tow the
fish across the river to the slacker water. It was 35 minutes
later when the fish was boated. It was a short nose fish that
measured 191cm (six feet three and three eighths inches long).
The sturgeon had never been tagged before, which meant it had
never been caught before that day, so I was a very lucky
angler in more ways than one. The fish weighed 130lbs and was
absolutely awesome and stunningly beautiful, with amazing
markings. After a few pictures she was returned to the river
and then the emotions of what had happened set in. Anyone who
has caught something that they have really been hoping for and
determined to catch will know what I mean.
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Sue’s first
sturgeon |
The last
two days we fished hard and managed to catch some more fish up
to nearly five feet long. I had 24 Sturgeon in all but Marc
was disappointed that I did not catch a fish over 250lbs.
Maybe next time, yes I will be going back and have already
booked to return next year.
It was a wonderful holiday in beautiful surroundings with a
great guide and if anyone reading this would like to go and
try and catch this wonderful fish contact Marc Layne's (the best
guide on the Fraser River) the web site is www.cascadefishingadventures.com and I can highly recommend it.
Doug Summers |
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New Catfish Captures
