THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Surprisingly, for the size of these fish and the degree of movement in the water, strike worthy bites
barely move the rod tip at all. The best thing I can liken it to is a shy cod bite. We were assured by our
guide Chad that that is about as good as it gets.
As sturgeon mooch along the bottom hoovering up edible items with their extendible mouth rather than
pursuing them, with such small baits, you don't have to wait to snatch the rod from the quick release
holder and set the hook.
The arrangement with Chad was that after catching one Sturgeon apiece of any size, a fish in excess of
a hundred pounds was then our sole target, even if that meant missing out on some degree of potential
action. So on day one he took us down river to a quiet area behind a gravel island where small fish could
be relied upon, and within the hour both Dave and I had the species ticked off our list.
Mine was a very small fish down in single figures. But Dave's wasn't a bad one which probably went
somewhere between forty and fifty pounds. Then the search for the big fish holding areas was on, which
doesn't take long in a shallow draft twenty one foot aluminium jet boat powered by a 286 hp Chevrolet
350 engine, giving it a top speed of around forty three mph.
As I've said, day one produced a lot more fish than had been expected, but that first fish of Dave's turned
out to be the best. Eleven fish boated and released meant that if we caught anything at all on day two,
by the law of averages, we were still owed two biggies. Least ways, that was our thinking as we sat in
the car at the slip waiting for Chad the following morning.
With rain rattling on the car roof and fearing being eaten alive by mosquito's outside, we waited
patiently. Fortunately the rain came and went over the day, though with the heavier bouts typically
always managing to coincide themselves with the hooking up fish.
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