In less than two years, a 19-year-old Atlanta, Georgia, angler who went fishing with his father for the first time caught a big Fraser River sturgeon. Paul Jarvis caught one of the largest white sturgeon ever caught on the Fraser River on the first day of a three-day father-son fishing trip on Thursday.
The massive fish measured more than three and a half meters in length and one and a half meters in diameter. Its weight was calculated to be 400 kilos using a mathematical formula because it was never taken out of the water. “I couldn’t believe the weight and strength of the fish in the first few minutes I had it on the line,” the university sophomore stated.
“I’m a big guy, and I couldn’t even hold on to the pole, much alone reel in the fish.” Keeping the fish in check turned out to be a true father-son battle. While I was fighting the fish, my father handed me water and even held on to my fighting belt and harness. When I saw that head rise from the sea, it was enormous.”
The boat’s main guide, Dean Werk of Great River Fishing Adventures, fought the sturgeon for more than an hour before bringing it to shore. According to Werk, the crew scanned the fish and learned that it had never been tagged before. Anglers gathered to get their photos shot in front of a PIT conservation sticker.
Anglers are given PIT tags by the Sturgeon Conservation Centre to aid in population estimates for white sturgeon. It’s the fourth giant sturgeon to be taken in the Fraser River in the last two years. Last September, Niels Rasmussen caught a three-meter-long sturgeon when fishing with Danish friends. Norman Daley of Kamloops captured a huge 500-pound sturgeon in September 2012, while a British tourist hooked one of comparable size and dragged it in after a 90-minute fight in July.
Sturgeon of this size, according to Marvin Rosenau, a lecturer at the British Columbia Institute of Technology’s School of Environment, are pretty old. Rosenau added, “These aren’t fish that were born last week, last year, last decade, or last half-century.” “These were born around the same period as Canada.” It’s unusual to catch so many record-breaking sturgeons in such a short period of time, according to Rosenau.
