Sturgeon- Don’t they live in Russia ?

Sunni,  one of the mechanics who works at the garage we are stuck at in Lillooet, has also been an absolute star. He offered to take us sturgeon fishing on Friday night. My first reaction was – Sturgeon – aren’t they the ones in Russia that they get caviar from . Well they live in the rivers here too.  You can fish for them but only on a catch and release basis.

After Sunni finished work he took us and his family down to a great little beach by the Fraser river. The track to get there was pretty gnarly but their pickups made easy work of it. At the end was private beach with a still corner of the river just off the main channel – although just downriver were some rapids.

Sturgeon is a bottom feeder so you chuck a line out with a heavy weight on and some salmon roe as bait and wait. When you get a bite, pull back hard on the rod to set the hook and then reel the guy in. That is easier said than done as these fish can get up to 10ft long.

Within 5 minutes we had a bite and Sunni handed the rod off to me. It took me about 20 minutes of hard work to reel in a 5ft 6in Sturgeon. That was fun.

20 minutes later we had another to give Sarah a chance to catch one. Hers was much smaller though at only 4ft. Probably a good thing as it had taken all my strength to lift the big one.

After that we settled down to a great Salmon bake prepared by Sunni’s wife, Elsa. We sat on the beach watching the river and the sun set. Beautiful.

Then eating done there was time for more fishing in the increasing gloom. There was time for Sunni to land a fish as well but it was too dark to measure. So we called it a day after this one and packed up in the pitch black.

A really good evening and we want to put out a big thank you to Sunni and Elsa for giving us a really great experience.