Fresh pink salmon and huge sturgeon

We had a great week so far catching fresh pink salmon on flies, jigs, spinners, and spoons. More and more fresh fish are arriving daily. The big sturgeon are really keying on fresh salmon parts and we are catching some great fish!! Check out some pics of our last group, they landed 28 fish between 4' and
7 1/2 feet long in three days!!

February 8th chasin' dinos!

The Outback Fishers!!!

Had a great day on the water with Des from Australia and his 2 sons Kyle and Sage, yup named Sage after the rod company just like my son! These kids were a couple keeners, and after missing a few bites in the beginning, they were all over those sturgeon! They managed to land 26 fish in under 4 hours, with 4 double headers (2 fish on at a time)They helped put some tags in new fish for the tagging program with the Fraser River Sturgeon Conservation Society. It was big smiles, and sore arms for the boys from ''down under'' before they had to jump on a plane back home. Nice work guy's :)

Winter Sturgeon

Did the annual winter sturgeon trip with my buddies and their sons. We do it every year at the same time over the holidays to share some laughs and hopefully put some tags in some new fish for the mark recapture program that I'm part of with the Fraser River Sturgeon Conservation Society. The conditions were great and the fishing fantastic. We boated 50 fish in 5 hours, and only 16 were recaptures. Great to put some tags in a few new fish for the society. The boys were very busy landing, tagging, and recording data. Its great getting the kids involved with this. At one point all five rods had a bite at once, creating some interesting maneuvers! Looking forward to this trip again. Enjoy a couple pics from our day.

Mid November fishing

 Spent the last three days fishing in some unbelievable weather for mid November! People just assume that by now the fishing has ended, but little do they know, it can be incredible this time of year. Here are a couple pics from the last couple days for you to enjoy:)

MONSTER birthday sturgeon!

Well with all the "talk" about huge sturgeon being caught on the Fraser River lately, I thought I'd share a cool story with everybody that follows our blogs rather send the story and pics into the paper! The day started out as usual, meeting my guest Steve and his wife Joe for the first time at the hotel. They seemed excited with all the recent news of big fish being caught on the Fraser! The usual comments were thrown around on the drive to the launch like, " I want a big fish"! I responded as usual with my "be careful what you wish for"! I also used my usual, "lets try and get one bigger than you" line, but the problem was that he was 6 foot something and pushing 300 lbs!   Steve was no stranger to fishing, and had landed catfish to 150 lbs so I had my work cut out for me. It also happened to be his birthday, so it was doubly important to find him a good one ;)  I explained that the average fish we catch is in the 3-5 foot range but this time of year can produce BIG fish. Arriving at the first drop we ran into a dozen seals soaking up whatever heat they could on a boom of logs. Wasn't too long and Steve was into his first fish. Just under 5 feet, Steve commented on how well it fought and I joked, "so can you imagine how a big one will fight!" The next few bites took place while Steve has his back turned or doing something else resulting in a few late swings and clean misses. Shortly after lunch we got a great bite, and this time he saw it and struck like he meant it!! Next thing you know this giant creature comes flying out of the water shaking it's head trying lose the hook! Steve kept his cool, and it jumped again! Now if you've never seen a fish this big jump, it's crazy! I looked at Steve and said that I only saw 3/4 of it and there was 8 feet!! Luckily I had a guy on board that can fish, but even with his size and strength we had trouble getting it close to the boat! After 45 minutes we managed to pull it along side the boat, only to have it jump again and peel of half a spool of line! Towards the end even a guy as experienced as Steve, was brought to his knees exhausted, dripping with sweat, and shaking in pain, but he DID IT! Nice work buddy! This is the biggest fish one of my clients has caught this season, and the 3rd largest one any client has landed on my boat in over 15 years of guiding for sturgeon! She inhaled the piece of lamprey eel so deep we could barley get to the hook, but did safely.  She measured in at 3 meters to the fork of the tail, well over 11 feet overall and had a girth of 58 inches that carried all the way back to the anal fins, super fat! While there is no actual way to get weights on these monsters, if you were to poll all the guides out there, you'd get answers ranging from 550-900lbs so? I'll just say it was huge. You may find it interesting to know that she had been previously tagged in the Fraser River Sturgeon Society's, monitoring and assessment program! Check out some pics of her below, I wish I had got better photos, but you can only do so much with a couple guys. To put it into perspective the picture beside my 17 foot boat shows just how long it really is, and knowing that Steve is a BIG dude you can realize the girth and weight she had! 

Great job Steve, and happy birthday!

What's happening?

With less than a hand full of days off since the middle of July it's been a struggle to keep up with my blog so I apologize. Here's what's happening, been out chasing dinosaurs and trout. The weather has been incredible, and it's hard to believe it's September and the kids are back in school! Catching lots of big fish lately, and making lots of new friends :) Busy preparing for my trip to the steelhead "mecca" the Babine river in a week. Be sure to check back for a post about that one!! It should be a beauty!

Tight lines......... <"))))<

nice 6 1/2 footer

"double header" on 6 footers!!

crazy skull cap!

perfect morning

beautiful cutthroat trout

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