Sunday, September 28, 2014

Matt's wild weekend!

Last night was the third in four nights that I hit sturgeon alley in kayak with a group of friends.   Up till now we've caught lots of tommy cod, eel, catfish and white perch but no sturgeon.    Finally last night we had some luck!

Matt McDonald who is new to sturgeon fishing this year has caught a few through the summer and last night was a pretty special night for him.   After several hours of Matt, myself and a couple others having no luck, he finally managed to land a nice 34 inch shortnose sturgeon.    A little later he landed a 21 inch atlantic!   So Matt appears to be 'the man' at this point!   

Finally I manage to land my first sturgeon in a few weeks with a 31 inch short nose, it was nice to get that monkey off my back.  



But Matt wasn't done... a little later his hooks what he says is a striper!   The fish jumped in the night right off the start but we barely glimpsed it with our headlights.   Then the fight was on!    Matt was taken in circles fighting this fish for 6 - 10 min!     We were thinking striper, but finally he gets it to the surface and sees it's a huge sturgeon!     After getting it in and giving it a measure, it ended up at 50 inches!    Congrats Matt on joining the 50 inch club!     The sturgeon went back into the water to be caught again next week (hopefully by me!) at the sturgeon derby!


Thankfully Matt didn't break one of my records 2 nights in a row (I have a 52 and 54 inch sturgeon in my name)!    Friday night he hauled in an absolutely rediculous American Eel measuring a whopping 32 inches!    That easily breaks my personal best eel of 29 inches!     It was a great weekend for Matt as you can see!


Matt's success has come using the rigging and technique that I came up with for sturgeon fishing and have had good luck with this past year.   If your not from our area and would like to visit and go out in search of one of these dinosaurs, take a look at the "Fishing With Joe" section and we will see if we can get a picture of you holding your own trophy fish like this!

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