Three anglers combined to catch an 800-pound sturgeon on the famous Fraser River in British Columbia and did so despite the reel breaking during the battle.
Alex Kirk, Tom Kirk and Terry Jacobson of Calgary were fishing with the SturgeonHunter guide service near Chilliwack on Tuesday when they made the impressive catch of a sturgeon that measured 11-feet long with a 5-foot girth.
“We couldn’t believe it,” Tom Kirk told Global News. “This fish came out of the water probably three times about 10, 15 feet in the air. It looked like a shark coming out of the water.”
“Like a great white,” Jacobson added. “It was pretty incredible.”
Alex Kirk told Global News it was like hooking up to a truck, adding, “Wherever that sturgeon wanted to go, we went and we had to follow it. It was a ride of a lifetime.”
But landing the sturgeon didn’t come easily.
“Everything that possibly could go wrong went wrong, except we caught the fish,” Tom Kirk told Global News.
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SturgeonHunter told USA Today/For The Win Outdoors that the sturgeon got tangled four times on sunken logs, but owner/guide Steve Kaye managed to untangle the line each time.
Then the unthinkable happened. The reel broke. Kaye came up with a quick solution, however. He cut the line and tied it onto another fishing rod and the battle continued.
Kaye also had to untangle a patch of debris that wrapped around the line as the sturgeon was being brought to shore.
After quick measurements and photos, the estimated 100-year-old fish was released and it “swam away strong as per normal,” SturgeonHunter told For The Win.
Photos courtesy of SturgeonHunter.
