After casting a couple mid-lake spots it was time to take a break to re-fuel and re-hydrate. A pair of 9" Grandma lures went into the water one at 15' and one at 20'. The water was 14-16 feet deep with about 4' visibility. No action for about a half hour had me ready to start casting again. Then it happened, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. The mother of all rips, I picked the rod out of the holder and put a little pressure on and there was NO give. Anchor line, I was sure of it. Once the second rod was clear I put the boat in reverse and started to back up toward whatever the lure was snagged on. After about ten seconds of backing I had only gained about ten feet of line… it was then I realized the snag was running away from the boat at an angle!! Five minutes later the line counter read 20 feet, then 19, then 18… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz back to 100'. Then there was a weird feeling and slack, lots of slack, it's gone – the line broke. I quickly cranked in the remaining line to see what happened but as the line counter reached 30 feet I got some bend in the rod in the opposite direction. This fish had just gone from 100 feet behind the boat to 30 feet in front of the boat in about a second. That was the final rush and from that point the fish never got more than 50 feet away for the next five minutes. Then it was closer, finally I could see the leader… net in hand… one easy scoop…
Unhooked in the net, lifted into the boat and set on the bump board. She's longer than the 60" bump board – 5 inches longer. I lifted her for a couple quick photos and slid her back in the water. There was no recovery time she kicked away instantly and was gone. Unreal…
I can't express how happy I feel for Will's achievement. My first impulse is to blab the excitement to whole world, but I must refrain and let Will contact and tell his own story to the DNR fishery staff himself. Will, I'll give you Monday. After that I may not be able to control myself.
PS: Did you get a girth measurement for the weight formula?
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I can't say for sure if it tried to eat it or not. It was hooked in the side of the head so it might have tried to eat it. I was going pretty slow at about 3.5mph, I wasn't seriously trolling, I had to do some tinkering on the boat. I was actually on my back under the console of the Targa trying to figure out why my CD/Radio wasn't working.
I don't think I would have been able to do anything with this fish if it was hooked behind the head. My guess is that I would still be wondering what peeled off 250 yards of YoZuri…
Since there is a question in my mind that it was snagged I'm already planning 2006 as the year of the sturgeon in my boat. I've been considering targeting sturgeon for a while but next year I'll be spending some time on the St Clair river chasing some of these giant fish.
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