You know your having fun when!

To say sturgeon fishing here is hot right now would be a bit of an understatement!   With the cold weather that's been lurking around, Sunday (Nov 23rd!) was a phenomonal day to be out fishing with a rare mild temp of +6 degrees and the sun beating down.   Low winds led to calm waters, and with 24 sturgeon landed, this may very well have been my best fishing day of the entire year!

 

On the water for about 6 1/2 hours, I as able to catch sturgeon pretty steady all day.    Three friends in kayak joined me, and everyone caught sturgeon, though my 24 landed (not to mention the 10 or so I lost) dwarfed the next best number caught of 8!   I'd like to say it was skill, technique and equipment that allowed me to more than double the number of fish caught by everyone else combined, and those did play into it, but really there was an element of luck involed as well.

At one point, with Matt adjacent to me in kayak, I would say, "Watch this Matt!".   Then proceed to check my rods, and sure enough, there was a sturgeon there.   I did that 3 or 4 times in a row, every time hooking into a sturgeon, and in one case, while reeling in the fish, my other rod hooked into a second one!    While the first sturgeon was pulling me foward, the second one was turning me around the other way.... that was a ton of fun!

My biggest fish on the day was 45", of which I landed two that size.  Matt, with one of his last fish on the day landed the biggest overall at a nice 48 1/4 inches as measured on my new Handlebarz Muske Lures Bump Board.    This bump board is big, and somewhat cumbersome to manage in a kayak, but it's absolutely fantastic for getting an accurate measurement out on the water for bigger fish like sturgeon!

I don't imagine I'll get too many more days out in kayak this year, it will all depend on the weather.   But if this turned out to be the last kayak fish of the year, it was certianly one worth remembering!

Oh, as great as this day was things didn't start off well.  Even before getting on the water, my Malone Kayak Cart broke!   One of the legs just snapped right off!   I'll have to contact Malone to see what they may be willing to do about this as the cart is only about 4 months old!