Never say never.
Less than 30 minutes prior to this paddle fish catch, I was explaining to Tanner Harcey why we never catch spoonbills fishing the way we do. Spoonbills eat plankton and are generally snagged when caught by hook and line fisherman. Anchoring and fishing with our bait on the bottom just isn’t a setup that’s going to catch a paddle.
Thirty minutes later I’m eating those words while taking photos of Jeff’s 30.5 pound paddle fish. We took it’s weight in the net, cut the PowerPro line wrapped around it’s bill, snapped a few photos and gave her some cpr before she swam off into the depths of old man river.
After a very nice fight that made me believe it was a larger sturgeon, the lassoed paddle came to the boat. Getting it into the Beckman was the next hurdle. Jeff swam the fish into the net head first going down stream. It’s the only way the fish and it’s paddle were going into the net!
Jeff’s was reminded by Tanner a couple – ten times that this fish was Jeff’s only fish of the night!
The fella I was to be guiding tonight canceled at the last minute, so after a fish buffet at the Bluff’s Bar and Grill in Hager City, I was focused on seeing how this rising water would effect the shovelnose sturgeon and cat fish bite on Pool 4. This might be the last night in the 70’s for the rest of the year and I wanted to take advantage of it.
While getting bait at Everts, I saw Tanner Harcey fishing from the dock. This would be a perfect time to take him out fishing as I promised him I would earlier.
I was looking at the LakeMaster map a week or so ago and notice a place that I could anchor in 20ish feet of water and fish in much deeper, fast water that the shovelnose seem to like. Tonight would be a good night to check it out.
It wasn’t long before the tipy tops of the St. Croix rods started dancing and Tanner had his first tagged sturgeon to the boat.
The bait today is what I try to always take along this time of year. Sucker slices, crawlers, live and dead fatheads and Secret Seven stink bait.
I try to let the fish tell me what they want and tonight it was a small thumb nail size sucker fillet followed closely by crawlers. We never brought out the secret weapon…the stink bait.
Barbless 3/0 Gamakatsu circle hooks with a four ounce no roll sinker along with a 8 inch leader made up the terminal tackle. The barbless hook makes it a breeze to take out of all fish quickly and easily.
Using 80 pound test PowerPro relieves my mind of that “is the line going to break” feeling. Since cats, sturgeon and appearenly paddle fish are not line shy, it’s clearly the way to go fishing for trophy fish.
I’m ask frequently what is the difference between a shovel and a lake sturgeon. Small lake sturgeon are often mistaken for a shovelnose because they look somewhat different from an older lake. The scoots or bony plates on a smaller lake sturgeon are much sharper than a larger older one.
A shovel will have a semi circle of whiskers where a lake will have a straight line. The whiskers or barbles are rough on a shovel and baby butt smooth on a lake.
The head is more flat than a lake sturgeon.
Here’s a photo of a lake and a shovel that shows the color difference.
Remember there isn’t a season for lake sturgeon on the Mississippi River. Catch them, photograph them, measure them and get them back in the water as soon as possible. Don’t forget to record the tag number and send or call it into the MN DNR at Lake City. Maybe someday, we’ll see a catch and release season on these guys!
The summer of 2009 is on it’s down hill slide but we have the best fishing ahead of us!
Get out there and stick a big one!