Photo Credit Bryan Forsmann and battisti

Sunday started just like Saturday morning – no one wanted to rise due to fishing into the wee hours of the morning. I rose at 8:00 am to find Bryan and Chuck at the bank along with Kim and his clan. My agenda Sunday was to get up, launch the boat and go bass fish.

I spent the next hour or so cleaning and preparing the boat and rods. By 9:00 in the morning Bryan and I were cruising at 70-mph up the river arm of the lake – a 30-mile run. Bryan and I fished a number of areas that, in the past, had been very productive but didn’t pan out. We had a couple of follows on a Lucky Craft LV-300 but nothing wanted to commit. The water was still cold from run-off and the amount of floating weeds in the 5-mph current made it difficult to get a cast off without dragging in a pound of vegetation. At noon we called it a day and headed back to camp.

Sunday was my day to head home. If I was to change my status from “sturgeon virgin” to “sturgeon catcher” I didn’t have much time. The gang knew this and wanted me to “land” my first real sturgeon. Chuck and Robert decided to pack up camp and head to the other side of the river in order to hopefully increase our odds.

I had planned my departure time to be 4:00 pm. This would give me time to make the 4-hour drive home and unload my boat in daylight. The problem with this was we didn’t get set up on the opposite shoreline until 3:00 pm, which only gave me an hour to rid myself of the “virgin” moniker.

Six rods were placed at strategic positions along the various seams in the current. In all, we covered a good 50-yards of river.

The first bite came within 5 minutes as I was texting a friend – i.e: not paying attention. The fish ate the bait with such force that it pulled the rod holder to the ground and began dragging the rod down the embankment and towards the river. I dropped my phone and grabbed the butt of the rod right before it got out of reach.  The fish was gone.

We pounded the rod holder back into the ground and continued fishing.

Twenty minutes later Chuck made a cast with a fresh bait and was bit before he was able to get the rod in the holder. He set the hook, screamed TERRY, and the fight was on.

Last minute effort.

It was evident this was another big fish as its body came halfway out of the water. One thing about these fish is you don’t know if they’re going to stay in the deep water and sulk after their initial jump or hightail it downstream and take every remaining inch of line off your reel.

This fish decided to hightail it downstream.

There’s not much you can do from shore with a fish that weighs in excess of 300 pounds when it decides to move. About all you can do is hold on, let the drag and rod do the work and hope like hell the fish stops before you run out of shoreline and/or line.

In less than 10 seconds, the fish had ripped off in excess of 100 yards of line and created so much friction in the drag system that it was hot to the touch. Out of room on the bank to follow the fish, I slowly began to walk the fish back up the shore while trying to regain some of the line I had lost. 10 minutes into the battle, I was gaining on both fronts.

By this time we had drawn a crowd of onlookers – namely a group of people from Ohio who had never seen the likes of a sturgeon. Unfortunately for me, this group, mainly consisting of kids and a parent or two, all decided to take front row seats at the water’s edge. As I guided the fish towards shore, the fish saw the large crowd, their feet nearly in the water, and turned tail back downstream in another run that was longer and faster than the initial run. Here I am again, out of bank to run down and nearly out of line.

With the rod held high, I slowly walked back to my original fighting position and began the slow, arduous task of recovering line. Roughly ten minutes later I found myself with a tired, 8-foot sturgeon that “looked” like it was ready to be let go. As it surfaced near the shore, we finally got to see the magnitude of the fish.

Approaching the bank.

Sturgeon landed.

Chuck grabbed the line as the fish hit the shore and Jenna, Bryan, Rebecca and I made our way down the bank towards the water. Hook out of the fish’s mouth, Bryan snapped a few photos and then it was bye-bye sturgeon. I was no longer a virgin.

By the time I’d landed the fish, it was 3:50 pm – 10-minutes before my original leave time. We stood around for a few minutes reveling in the catch and the weekend and then it was time for me to depart. I thanked everyone for their hospitality and for letting me use their gear and pull on some fish, and then I got in my truck and headed home.

To say last weekend opened my eyes would be an understatement. Not only did I get to pull on some truly magnificent fish but I also got to meet some new people who I’m sure will become lasting friends over the course of time. That’s what I like about this sport and Idaho – the people involved are predominantly upstanding people who would give the shirt off their back to make your experience one to remember.

Thank you all – Chuck, Jenna, Robert, Rebecca, Kim and especially my buddy Bryan for such a great trip. I look forward to the next time with anticipation.

Left to right: Jenna, me, Chuck, Robert and Rebecca. Bryan was behind the camera.

Afterword

As I was heading east on highway 84, some 70 to 80 miles away from the river, I received a call from Bryan: “Terry, have you seen my camera? We have a 10-footer on and I can’t find my camera. I think I left it on your boat.”

Sure enough, in the maylay after my fish, he had placed his Nikon D300 on the front deck of my boat and I drove off with it. Thank God it was still there when I pulled over on the highway to check. Unfortunately for me, though, I was 70 miles from the action and getting to witness a 10-foot dinosaur. Oh well, it just gives me an excuse to go back.

Photo Credit Bryan Forsmann and battisti

Fighting the fish took me back to my ocean days – the fish had command and I was along for the ride. After a couple runs downstream and 15 minutes of sulking in the 30-foot depths of the river, it was time for my first sturgeon to come in. That’s when my first sturgeon turned into my nemesis – a.k.a. my, “it looks like a sturgeon, Terry, only smaller.”

Fighting my first sturgeon.

So, with my first, albeit small, 5-footer to shore, I was still a virgin in their eyes but at the same time, it lit a fire under me. If a 5-foot freshwater fish could pull like that, I could only imagine what an 8- or 9-footer would feel like.

I’d have to wait until the following afternoon for that to happen, though, as nothing bit the rest of the night.

5-footer on shore.

Day Two

The following morning nobody was early to rise. The reason for this is if we had stayed up another 30 minutes, we would have been able to see the sun rise – yes, we stayed up with the hope that another fish would eat our offerings of crappie carcasses to no avail.

By 8:00 am, most of the camp was up, rods baited and strategically placed within the seams of current where dinosaurs lurk. Kim and his crew had already hooked a couple fish and the smell of spuds and smoked bacon wafted throughout the camp.

As we ate pig and eggs we gazed at the hypnotic bounce of rod tips and thunder clouds assembling southwest from our vantage point – the wrong direction if we wanted dry weather later in the day.

No one but us land-dwellers was interested in eating that morning.

By 11:00 am the weather had taken a drastic turn. Thirty-mph winds whipped through the camp and I could only imagine what the water looked like on the reservoir above. And still the sturgeon didn’t cooperate.

Finally around 2:30 pm the wind laid down and Jenna and Robert wanted to try their hand at some perch and crappie. We headed to the secret perch spot and within 30 minutes got blown off the water due to a massive thunderstorm that rolled through. It wasn’t all a loss, though, since in that time we caught 15 crappie (bait) and 33 jumbo perch (dinner).

Back at camp, the report was Kim caught a couple. We waited out the storm and an hour later we headed back to the lake – this time Bryan, Robert and myself – for more bait and dinner.

Upon returning, one of Kim’s gang was on – a good fish.

Fish on for another virgin.

8-footer on the bank.

Again, Robert and I took to the fish-cleaning duties, him with the electric fillet knife (I have to get one of those) and me cutting the rib cages out of the fillets. After cleaning a 10-pound bag worth of perch, I sat down, not wanting anything to do with 30-plus more crappie, and rested as Bryan took over.

Sturgeon ready for release.

Meanwhile, Chuck had moved his cadre of rods down the bank in order to try another stretch of water – all his rods except one. I eyed the rod and felt the urge to bait it and cast it to “the” spot where we’d been fishing the last 24 or so hours. I pinned a freshly caught crappie carcass on the hook and casted into the seam. As soon as I set it in the rod holder, the tip started to bounce. But this bounce was not the sinker rolling on the bottom or a carp hitting the line. I picked the rod up, felt weight and set the hook into an 8-foot torpedo. FISH-ON!!!

Putting on the pressure.

In no more than 10 strokes of its tail, the fish was beyond the middle of the river and on the surface – this was no, “looks like a sturgeon only smaller.”

After 15 minutes of playing tug of war in the middle of the river, the fish decided to come back towards the shore. Unfortunately for me, it went directly to a deep hole next to the bank where the line would rub against every rock between me and the fish. These fish didn’t survive all these millennium by being stupid. After a 2-minute soak in the hole, it decided to head straight into the middle of the river towards the turbine wash and pow, I was on my ass. The 80-pound line parted and my first “real” sturgeon was gone.

Within the next 30 minutes, we hooked three more fish of the same caliber – two of which were handed off to me – and I proceeded to break off my two while Chuck landed the third. We were on them big time.

That evening we hooked 8 fish landed 4 and I was still a sturgeon virgin.

Chuck on again!

Chuck's fish ready for release.

Thursday I’ll post Part III – Terry Lost His Cherry