Success and Surprise on the Kennebacasis

This weekend my friend Matt MacDonald and I had another epic 11 hour kayak fish on the Kennebacasis.   We put in at about 2:00 on Saturday and just got off the water there a few hours ago... about 1 in the morning!   It was a long day, but a memorable one to say the least!

The plan was to paddle to the top of Darling's Island and fish for striped bass.   It was a spot both of us had heard good things about but neither had tried.   While neither Matt nor I, nor any of the other several anglers we met had any luck with stripers, Matt managed to catch a 21 inch burbot almost immeadiately!

Now the thing is, neither of us knew what the heck this fish was and had to take to Facebook to find out from friends.   No one, to my knowledge currently has ever heard of a burbot being caught on the Kennebacasis, certianly not up near the top of Darling's Island!   This fish, and apparently the unique markings on it according one long time NB angler is definately somewhat unique!   Leave it to Matt to have a catch like this and leave me wanting to throw him in the drink for it!    

If you know of burbot being caught in this area, or have any thoughts on it, please let me know.  I've love to know what others think of this catch!

I did manage to catch several small catfish and then one nice fish out in this part of the river, a 42" shortnose sturgeon.    This would be the first of 5 sturgeon I'd land on the day, and just the third biggest!

Eventually the tide headed back out, so we went with the current back down to our usual fishing grounds near the mouth of the hammond.   By this time it was dark.    I landed a 32 inch sturgeon, and then almost immeadiately after hooked another.    This one was had a lot of fight in him!   I was hopeful that I had on my first 4 footer of the season, but after about 7 min, I finally landed a 43" fat shortnose.   He was jigged both on is side and a fin, which is probably why he was fighting so hard!

As the outgoing tide started to come to an end, the sturgeon in the river suddenly got very active.   There were fish jumping all around us.    At one point a nice fat sturgeon jumped about 5 feet off the side of my kayak.    I moved locations at one point and literally ran into one sturgeon, then a little later another went to jump and ran right up into the bottom of Matt's kayak!     This was finally turning into a fun night!

Finally, I hooked the sturgeon I was looking for!    It was heavy but I got it to the surface quickly and then almost immeadiately I was able to grab it and haul it into the kayak.    A 49.5" fat shortnose sturgeon!    Finally I broke the 4 foot mark and have my one sturgeon that I'll be keeping this year for the smoker!    I did land yet another nice sturgeon after that at 37" and Matt hauled in a 32" sturgeon as well.  
 
So, while the past few weeks in sturgeon alley has been slow, it looks like things are finally starting to pick up, and there is some good size to the sturgeon as well!   I'm looking forward to a great November of sturgeon fishing!

Finally, well past midnight, it was time to head back.    But the surprises weren't done.    On our return, we found that I had a flat tire on my new Jeep!    Tires shouldn't got flat with just 5500 km on them!    Oh well, a quick tire change with help from Matt and we were on our way home!