Kayla Odegard Tiberio of Grand Forks told this story about a large lake sturgeon she recently caught while fishing with her husband, Joe Tiberio, on Lake of the Woods:
“My husband and I were preparing for a walleye tournament last week on Lake of the Woods. We are fairly new to the world of Active Targets (Lowrance forward facing sonar). We were seeing these huge marks 5-7 feet below the surface in about 35 feet of water. We targeted a few of them with no luck. Using a black jig and a leech, I FINALLY got one to bite.
“It turned out they were sturgeons.
“The fish came in really easily and then suddenly it took us. I thought about cutting the line, but we decided against it and just wanted to wait and see how it would turn out.
“(The sturgeon) had come up about five times and finally I got so tired that I told my husband to just try to get his head in the net and then we would go from there.
“My husband caught the head in the net, I dropped my fishing rod and leaned over to pick it up. We didn’t have a long enough measuring stick, but from the markings on the ground it was about 150cm long.”
The sturgeon was her first, Odegard Tiberio says, and it took about 30 to 40 minutes to haul the big fish ashore using the 8-pound-test line she had on her reel. Based on the length and girth estimates the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources posts on its website, a 60-inch-long sturgeon would weigh between 40 and 66 pounds, depending on the girth. Judging by the girth of this particular sturgeon, it’s safe to assume the fish weighed 66 pounds rather than 40.
“And yes, we can now tell the difference between a big walleye and a big sturgeon with Active Target,” said Odegard Tiberio.
Do you have a fishing story you’d like to share with Herald readers? Send your story, along with a photo, to Brad Dokken at [email protected]. Please include the angler’s name, where he or she lives, and whether the fish was kept or released.
