Heath Sershen handles a decent St. Croix Lake Sturgeon

After the past weekends fishing adventures I thought I would bring it to the attention that after at least 28 seasons on the water I have added three new species to my list this season. This last one being one of the most triumphant.

Being a mystical fish the Lake Sturgeon has been a target of mine for several seasons. With the help of many of my friends on RoughFish.com I was able to get one.

It was a triumphant fight with this fish. I saw the fish thump my line rigged with a 1/0 circle hook, three fatheads (two live and one smashed) and two night crawlers. It then went limp.

I began to reel in the slack and found that the fish was still there and was running at the boat. I pulled the line smoothly tight and the fight was on. We had two people with four rods in one boat. My fishing partner started to act on our “fish on” plan that we had set on our way to the river. His chore was to bring in three lines and two anchors. Our inboard motor had been pulled up out of the water as soon as we had set the anchors.

With two lines up I felt the lull of being wrapped around the front anchor. My partner switched to pulling in the anchor. Our plan was to pull the anchor up until we saw where my line was wrapped. We got the anchor up from the 30-foot river bottom to within three feet of the boat when we noticed my line was wrapped around three times. We took care of that with a sharp knife to the anchor rope making sure that we were holding on to the anchor before we cut the rope.

The fight continued. My partner got the other rod and anchor in and readied the net. We were in luck in that my buddy Chad was anchored 30-feet away in his boat. He aimed his 1 million watt spotlight our way so that the fish was easily netted.

As the fish came in the boat an eight inch Lamprey fell off. I promptly flipped the Lamprey back into the water.

The fish taped to 44-inches and came up at 17-pounds on the digital scale.

We photo-documented the catch and gently released it into the water.  I made sure that the fish swam off on its own volition which it did so with a fury.  It was 10.30pm and we had been fishing since 6pm.  This was our second fish for the night and it was truly wonderful to get an up close look at this species of special concern.  I found that this fish was truly unique in that the coloring on its body looks as sand does at the bottom of a clear creek.  Its something I have not seen in other species of fish and is unique to this one.

After at least 28 seasons on the water I have added four new species to my list this season; Burbot, Longnose Gar, Shovelnose Sturgeon, and Lake Sturgeon.

Definitively this catch-photo-and-release trophy definately makes up for loosing my tackle box to a Canadian wind storm on a border lake in May and  the fly rod that I left on the top of my car in September as I left a the River for the day on the South Branch of the Whitewater.

Anyone know of anyone that has found a Winston IM6 with an Orvis CFO on it in the Whitewater Area lately? Specifically around Altura?

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Len’s website is http://lenharris.blogspot.com/

Pronghorn Productions TV can be found at http://www.pronghornproductions.net/

Thanks to Len and Chris for making this happen.

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Part 2:

I threw white #2 streamers and picked up several fish on my eight-weight.

The fishing was fast and furious and I never had to make a long cast or wait more than five minutes for a fish.

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I was throwing a #9 silver Rapala over the wing dam where the minnows that the bass were eating were stacked up.

I am not as accustomed to landing bass with crank baits in their mouths as I used to be. I ended up getting stuck twice, the hook pulled through the barb, twice, pretty lame however no worries.

Thank goodness they opened up the bridge to Wiscony again because this spot is on that side of the river!

There will be a video to follow soon.

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I had never done this before and was in for a treat.

We headed to Pike Creek near Racine, Wisconsin. We hiked through the golf course to a plunge pool behind the club house and fished small flies for running Kings.

My St. Croix Avid fly rod was good however the dragless combo reel sucked. I couldn;t cast very well however managed to catch a few fish on my first outing. The rest is history.

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