Unofficial State Record Sauger! Vandies Guide Ser!

After fishing with Mike I’m surprised! Congratulations Mike and Greg

John

wow what a beautiful fish
great job on the CPR

Great fish. Thought some one mentioned it was around 23″s. That had me thinking it must of had some real girth to way that much. So brought the scale with today on pool 2 and our biggest sauger was just a hair over 20″s and hit 3.5 on the scale. I always just figured that saugers ran about the same weight pattern as walleyes. Maybe I need to spend a little more time weighin fish.
How was the bite down there today?

Mike, I didn’t see the fish, but witnesses said that it’s head was very wide…like it was an older fish. She did measure 23.5 inches…looking back a top view picture would have been nice too…

Todays bite was a bit slower…many people reported 40 to 50 fish. I found myself feeling bad for a boat that came back with their two man limit…knowing that yesterday they would have done better (catching and releasing the otheres)…they laughed at me saying “It’s a good day when we can catch our limit!”

One group did well on jig and minnow…but most were doing well on Stewart Pro Blue, Oystershell, Cotten Candy and Firecracker with a Chartrues Tail Ringworms. Paddle Tails and Super Doo’s in the same colors..it was mixed as to which pattern worked “the” best.

Oh yeah, one boat hammered them with chartrues pepper supper doos.

One boat got into a flock of white bass and another had some luck with the crappie bite that I’m not to talk about.

Althought the temp was pretty nice, the slight wind was bitting. Sounds like the temps are taking an upward swing in the next few day!

I think most guys that fish the river regularly know that you can take the length to weight guidelines you’ll read on some fish rulers and throw them right out the window when it comes to some of the massive fish that get caught on the river.

I’ve seen a handful of females walleyes (caught a couple myself) that we’re in the 22.5″ – 23″ range that pulled a digi scale well into the 6 Lb range. Dustin had a 27.75″ fish 3 falls ago that went over 11 Lbs on TWO different digi scales… talk about a beast.

With the forage base in the river and the fact that nearly all of the saugers caught over 18″ will be females carrying a full load of eggs and you get some ultra-heavy fish that seem to defy what you’ll find else where.

Did you know that it is common, if you know what to look for, to find the beginning of an egg mass in eater sized walleyes and saugers as early as late summer? Most assume the eggs show up mid winter and mature quickly when in fact the girls are carry that load around for nearly half a year before they spawn.

By this time of the year, late fall – early winter, females have a nearly fully formed egg sack.

Awesome Fish!

OK guys we are kinda getting carried away with this.
Mike and I did not go and make this an official record.
So lets just call this a Big Sumo Sauger.
Hind site is always better.
Maybe I should have. But we talked it over Mike was here for a three short day fishing trip. The fish were snapping. We boated this fish about 9:15. He wanted to keep fishing. He did not want to get it mounted.

I have a walleye on the wall that we caught during a tournament up in Redwing you had to pinch the tail to get 26 inches she tipped the scale a 9 pound 4 ounces. She grabbed us Big fish honors.

When this sauger came to the net I new she was a piggy.
From the head back to her tail she was solid.
My photos do not do her justice. However she will be adding her gene pool again this year. I want alot more of her kids running around.
Here is another photo.

Greg and Mike,
Just simply, an AWESOME Sauger.
Congratulations you two….
Jack..