“The ride of your life”: Calgary fishermen catch a massive 11-foot sturgeon at B.C. River.
A trio of fishermen has great rights to boast after hooking up an 11-foot sturgeon on the Fraser River near Chilliwack. Reported by Nadia Stewart.
Three fishermen from Calgary were returning from their fishing trip to B.C. With some huge boasting rights. And the adventure was already in their way.
The trio caught an 11-foot sturgeon from the Fraser River near Chilliwack.
While on an expedition led by the SturgeonHunter company on Tuesday, the trio caught an 11-foot sturgeon from the Fraser River near Chilliwack.
The fish, which was measured at 62 inches, or one and a half meters in circumference, is estimated to be 800 pounds and 100 years old.
“We couldn’t believe it,” Tom Kirk said the next day. “This fish came out of the water probably three times about 10, 15 feet in the air. It looked like a shark coming out of the water.”
Kirk’s fellow fisherman, Terry Jacobson, agreed.
“Like a Great White,” he marveled. “It was pretty incredible.”
The adventurous part of the whole scenario was keeping the huge fish
The third member of the group, Alex Kirk, said that the hardest part of making the catch was simply keeping up with the huge fish, which took the boat down the river for several kilometers to a pile of logs before finally giving way.
“It’s like hooking up to a truck and just letting it go,” he said. “Wherever that sturgeon wanted to go, we went and we had to follow it.
“I was just holding up and enduring that trip. The ride of your life. “
However, the surgeon will not travel home with its captors. After taking some pictures, the group released the fish back to the river.
SturgeonHunter regularly leads capture and release expeditions on the Fraser River.
The owner and guide Steve Kaye, who was on the water with the fishermen, has been in charge of the tours since 1998 and says that this fish can be one of the record books.
“This is the second longest fish I’ve caught, and it’s the second thickest fish I’ve caught,” he said. “But when you combine those together, this is by far the heaviest fish I’ve caught.”
Even more remarkable, Kaye says that another sturgeon was caught a week earlier which was 10 feet long and 600 pounds.
Kaye said the average sturgeon seen in the river is between six and seven feet long.
Erin Stoddard, a fishery biologist at the Department of Forest, Land, Natural Resources and Rural Development, said a sturgeon of this size is normally found in the region about once in a year.
It’s a bigger fish, no question,” he said. “It’s not quite the record though. I think the biggest one measures 11 feet and four inches, so it’s close.”
According to Stoddard, the sturgeon population in the lower Fraser River is closely monitored by the province, which marks and regularly controls the fish.
However, the population is starting to decline.
“Right now there are about 40,000 sturgeon, which is a downturn from what we had before at about 45,000,” he said. “It stands to reason it will vary a bit, but it’s a bit concerning that it’s going down.”
Stoddard added that the 100-year-old fish is indeed in breeding age, which, combined with the current spawning season, means that more sturgeon may soon emerge in the area.
The experience was worth feeling it
Tom Kirk said that he and his fellow fishermen will never forget this experience, which means they will likely return to try again.
“Being from out of province, you hear about these fish and they’re one of those bucket-list things,” he said. “But words can’t describe it. Not until you actually touch it.”
Final Words
In short, whole this adventure was a good justification for all the risk taken. Have you experienced any such unsolicited adventure ever before? If yes, I would love to hear about your journey in the comments section below. Let me know your take on the article discussed and how you think, had it should be handled, if not this way?
