After fishing with IronNoggin for over a week, our friend Ross joined Mark and I for dinner a week ago before he headed to Mission for his annual sturgeon hunt with
Vic and his Crew of STS Guiding Service. We reflected on
our past adventures and agreed on another sturgeon trip during his stay. Known as
Hardcore by IronNoggin, Ross is one of the few angling fanatics who travel the world in search of the best fishing one can possibly find. Every outing with Ross has always been memorable, so I was pretty excited to see what this year's trip would bring us.
Throughout the week, I phoned to be updated on the sturgeon fishing. It started out quiet, due to the absence of pink salmon. once the mass of pinks arrived, Ross reported dozens of catches per day. We decided to set our trip up for this past Saturday. Vic suggested that we should head to the Fraser River canyon on the the
Hells Canyon Marine jetboat, to find some whitewater thrills beside some giant whites. After hearing about some past boating stories from the canyon, I was rather uneasy about it but Ross assured me that it is absolutely safe to do so.
Vic Carrao, also known as RA40 on this forum, is the owner of STS Guiding Service and has decades of Fraser Valley angling experience. Over the years, he has been instrumental on some changes in the sportfishing community. I first met him in person when he co-organized a Vedder River Cleanup with Patrice in winter 2002, where I also met Chris. A few months later, the
Chilliwack Vedder River Cleanup Coalition was formed. Vic is also involved in the Fraser River white sturgeon tagging program, so a trip guided by him is also an educational one if anglers wish to learn more about sturgeon biology.
Since we were taking the big boat, I decided to invite two Danish exchange students at UBC to join us for the trip. Svend is a friend of Nina's and Magda goes to the same university as the two of them. Both have never caught a fish before. By mixing together a diverse group, it would only make those bite-waiting times more interesting. Little did I know, we were not expecting much waiting time.
A quick greeting by Vic at 8:00am, we were off. We decided to make a couple of stops before some whitewater runs to see if we could connect with a fish or two. We rigged three rods up with either old salmon flesh or roe sacs, which are major food sources for white sturgeon this time of the year. The silence in the canyon was interrupted by pink salmon splashing in the shallows once awhile. About 15 minutes after anchoring, the tip of two rods began bouncing lightly, something was sniffing down there. The constant quick tugs suggested that northern pikeminnows were taking advantage of this underwater buffet. Vic said there could be dozens of species feeding on a piece of bait at any given time. Once awhile, a slow downward motion of the tip indicated the presence of a sturgeon. After a couple of misses by Vic and Ross, a big fish surfaced and made a loud kick with its tail. "That was our fish...", Vic mumbled.
Another ten minutes went by, suddenly Ross jumped up during our conversation, grabbed one of the rods and yanked it over his head. No reeling was needed, that line was already peeling off the spool. Ross handed the rod to Svend, who surely didn't know what he was getting himself into. Mark and I knew, so we were already hiding in the back, making sure that rod did not end up in our hands.
The fish continued to ram like a freight train. At about 200 feet out from our boat, it finally emerged and gave us the classic jump. The look on Svend and Magda's faces was priceless, as if they had just seen a monster. Actually, they did.
With Vic's guidance, Svend started to get a hang of it. Many people think fighting a sturgeon is simply a strength test, that is quite false. In fact, to successfully conquer a sturgeon, one needs to focus on its every move. During the first half of Svend's fight, this fish was in full control. It towed him around and seemed to be unaware that it was hooked. Vic said, "Wait until it wakes up." Sure enough, once some pressure was put on, that fish was mad. For every ten feet we gained, it gained twenty more feet. To make things easier, we decided to chase it with the boat. After about 30 minutes, it finally got close to the beach. Svend handed the rod back to the hook-setter so he could put on a pair of waders. The 7+ feet long sturgeon was eventually beached, tagged, measured and posed with the happy first timer. This is a rather big fish for Svend's first ever! Most people start out with minnows.
After our "warm-up", it was time for a ride. Vic went through some safety instructions and we put on our lifejackets. Without knowing what was ahead of us, I was quite excited yet anxious. The ride mostly involved fast planing on the surface in the wider sections. There were several narrow sections where huge rapids were found. Some sections were not passable awhile ago according to Vic. It amazed me how small the rapids looked from far away. The actual size of the holes and falls dwarfed my estimations. The jet and its pilot performed flawlessly, even though at times my heart dropped a beat for a split second whenever the boat went airborne silently. The thrilling ride lasted about 1.5 hours, which ended just below Hells Gate.
On our way down we anchored and fished several spots. It took only minutes before we hooked up at the first spot. Vic handed the rod to Magda, who seemed so eagerly to fight a fish after seeing Svend's catch.
That eagerness didn't really last long.
The rod was bent to its limit and this fish was diving furiously. At 70 feet deep, she was not going to get this fish up in a hurry.
After about ten minutes, her arms gave up, despite of how hard she wanted to pull it up. The rod was then handed to Mark, who fought the fish for another ten minutes and just couldn't make the fish come up. This fish was determined to anchor itself to the bottom. It towed Mark from the right, to the left, back to the right, then to the left of the boat the whole time while it stayed directly under the boat.
Helplessly, he handed the rod to the sturgeon king. Ross held onto the rod and showed it who the boss really was. He cranked the drag up, powered the rod up, and started gaining line in no time. We were pretty impressed. Within minutes, a 6 feet long sturgeon surfaced. Judging by its strength, this fish was a lot smaller than we expected!
Once again we measured, tagged and got the visitors a couple of photos with the fish.
It seemed like a shore break was needed after every fish. No one was in a hurry to go through that again.
Well, except me, the photographer, the cameraman, the one who had been avoiding fighting a sturgeon. Vic said, "You're next Rod!"
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Topic: Fraser River Canyon September 15th, 2007: Adventure of a Lifetime (Read 6124 times)