Pitching jigs for walleyes leads to monster Rainy River sturgeon
Apr 18, 2018
Glen Bruchmann of Buffalo, Minn. wrangled a A 64-inch sturgeon on the Rainy River last week. He was walleye fishing with a St. Croix 7-foot Legend Elite, medium-light power rod.
Here’s his tale of sturgeon success.
“The whole day it seemed like every other boat was hooked up with a sturgeon,” Glen writes. “I knew it was just a matter of time for us to get lucky as well.”
Pitching jigs, he thought he’d hooked a tree, but it started moving.
“After about an hour of burning forearms and what felt like pulling up a VW Beetle, the fish finally surfaced,” he recalls. I couldn’t believe my eyes at how big it was! I saw that the fish was caught on the tail, and I got extremely nervous when it started rolling one way then the other.
“Once it got close enough to the boat, it took all our combined strength to slide the monster onto my buddy’s 16-footer. I saw that it was stretching pretty much the width of his boat. It kind of hit me how big this sturgeon was! It measured 64 inches in length!
“I wanted to get the fish back in the water as quickly as possible, Ryan says. “It slipped my mind to get a girth measurement as well. I can tell you that it was all of 80 pounds!”
Change of tactics
“After the thrill of this catch, we switched our gear to musky rods and focused on sturgeon fishing. I think we sat for the rest of the night and ended up boating about 14 sturgeon in about 3-4 hours. Just an incredible day on the water!”
The lake sturgeon season on Minnesota’s Rainy River is open until May 15 and the fishing is phenomenal. Anglers need noting more than a glob of nightcrawler, a good river weight style and tackle that’s heavy enough to reel in a prehistoric monster that might exceed 100 pounds.
More Rainy River sturgeon: https://midwestoutdoors.com/fishing/prehistoric-monsters-sturgeon-rainy-river/
and https://midwestoutdoors.com/fishing/ryan-shinabargars-big-rainy-river-sturgeon/
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Info about Rainy River and Lake of the Woods lodging and more: https://lakeofthewoodsmn.com/
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