A Short Day of Fishing
September 5, 2021
Nick was with me today looking to get his first ever sturgeon. We would try for them early and switch over to another species afterwards. Hopefully it would all go as planned!
The bottom looked dismal as I idled around searching for a spot to start. Eventually I just settled on a couple of smaller marks and gave it a try. This went on for a few areas before finally finding one place that I didn’t get harassed by nibblers. It was here I finally set into something decent and handed Nick the rod to fight the fish. I knew it wasn’t the one I was looking for but hoped it was at least the right species! Soon after he had the small sturgeon beside the boat and I tailed his catch. A few pics later it was returned unharmed and we went right back to searching for a giant!
I made a few more moves to try and find the fish but all we could come up with was one more bite. As it turned out, it was the biggest bass of the day! Too bad it had to be caught on the heavier tackle! Soon after we pulled the lines and switched to a different species!
I decided to begin with smallmouth and had him dropshot a ledge in deeper water. I too had a line in the water to get the right presentation and speed to remain vertical. We made a long drift over the same area that had been producing well for me lately and unfortunately only managed a couple of smaller bass. We did both however miss a couple of fish that I know were much larger when they just came off!
I wanted to try several spots and moved to another area where we finally got bit. I was marking some good fish and we actually doubled up on the first place we switched to. Things were looking up as I made a couple more passes over the hump and we also saw more bites. Too bad they were either small or missed all together!
I wanted to hit as many places as possible with what I thought was plenty more time left in the trip. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case as Nick told me that he only wanted to fish for about another hour. I decided to go back and see if we might be able to get another sturgeon. We spent about 30 minutes trying without any luck so I moved to another place looking for smaller fish instead.
Our last spot turned out to be full of fish but they were apparently all perch. We had tons of little bites while trying for walleye and although I did mark several, we only caught the little guys. Time passed quickly and we were done!
Although we didn’t get into as many fish as I had hoped for, Nick did manage to catch his first ever sturgeon today. He also landed a few smallies and I’m sure given more time that he would have caught plenty more! This turned out to be a very short day of fishing. I guess he’ll just have to come back again to try for another River Monster!!
