{"id":180,"date":"2010-10-09T22:39:36","date_gmt":"2010-10-10T07:39:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elaborate.net.au\/flyfishing\/?p=180"},"modified":"2010-10-09T23:11:47","modified_gmt":"2010-10-10T08:11:47","slug":"the-mighty-sturgeon-canada-2000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elaborate.net.au\/flyfishing\/the-mighty-sturgeon-canada-2000\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mighty Sturgeon – Canada 2000"},"content":{"rendered":"

The end of the heavy game rod dips slowly, as 30 metres below in the chilly Fraser River near Vancouver, a prehistoric monster of the deep delicately extends its hideous mouth over a dainty package of salmon eggs.<\/p>\n

I grab the rod, point down close to the water and wait. The next hit is slow and steady, on a 4\/0 hook imbedded in the small bridal veil package of roe, and then I strike \u2013 a bit like a baseballer aiming to hit out the floodlights about 200 metres away.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>At the end of the wild swing, I wind and pump the rod like a crazy man, while all around me sheer panic ensues.<\/p>\n

My line peels off at a furious pace, and my mates frantically wind in the other lines while our fishing guide Brent Gill jumps to the front of the jet boat, ready to throw the anchor line float overboard and point his jet boat after my sturgeon. They can strip 500 metres of 100-pound braid off a heavy sports reel in less than a minute, and if you aren\u2019t mobile by then, brother, your fish is gone.<\/p>\n

The bonefish might speed off like a sports car, but while a 2000-pound sturgeon seems to accelerate at the same rate, it has the momentum of express train. They are, dear reader, very, very hard to stop.<\/p>\n

After ten minutes of exceptional thrills, grunts, curses and hard work, I pull my monster alongside the boat and Brent calmly tails him, whipping him into the boat, remarking that these little fifty pounders aren\u2019t too much trouble (it\u2019s apparently when they get too much over three hundred pounds that he has some difficulty).<\/p>\n

When these really big fellows are brought together with the boat \u2013 you can\u2019t say you bring them to the boat, as you tend to also take the boat to them \u2013 they have to be hooked onto a temporary line and taken very carefully to shore, where between three and six men are needed to lift them up for an obligatory photo.<\/p>\n

As to what they look like, they\u2019re sort of a cross between a shark and a catfish, with a mouth like the creature in \u2018Alien\u2019. The mouth extends out and down to suck in food, which usually consists of eels or bits of rotting salmon, which drift down into the deeper holes where the real monsters live.<\/p>\n

The eggs are a special treat, although Brent gets a bit coy about discussing his visits to bridal shops to look for lengths of veil, which are then cut into hanky-size bundles for the enjoyment of Brent\u2019s Fraser River sturgeon. He loves \u2018em and thinks they\u2019re beautiful creatures. Frankly, we told him he should get out a bit more often.<\/p>\n

Well, my first hook-up was about 1.5 metres long and swam directly up at me from 30 metres down. It headed straight for me, almost faster than I could wind, until it reached the side of the boat when it leaped up, shook its head and spat the hook, before grinning at me as it passed within a metre of where I was standing.<\/p>\n

The line was still so tight that the slab-sided sinker, weighing half a kilo, flicked only centimeters past my (by this time) ashen face and landed near the bow of the boat five metres away. Evidently, I had struck too soon or too softly (you can never do it too hard) and the hook had only been lodged in the creature\u2019s hard outer mouth. I\u2019d say that was exciting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The end of the heavy game rod dips slowly, as 30 metres below in the chilly Fraser River near Vancouver, a prehistoric monster of the deep delicately extends its hideous mouth over a dainty package of salmon eggs. I grab the rod, point down close to the water and wait. The next hit is slow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"powered_cache_disable_cache":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-places-to-go-rivers-to-fish"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Mighty Sturgeon - Canada 2000 - Recreational Research<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.elaborate.net.au\/flyfishing\/the-mighty-sturgeon-canada-2000\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Mighty Sturgeon - Canada 2000 - Recreational Research\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The end of the heavy game rod dips slowly, as 30 metres below in the chilly Fraser River near Vancouver, a prehistoric monster of the deep delicately extends its hideous mouth over a dainty package of salmon eggs. 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