“Is that a fuckin’ Sturgeon?”
It’s interesting how there are moments in our life that in reflection, were obvious turning points. Like the proverbial pebble in the pond, the ripples make waves through all parts of our life yet we hardly recognize them in the moment, or maybe we don’t concentrate well enough due to all of the distractions of ‘modern life’. No matter, we simply don’t notice until it’s too late to take any action that would change the pebble.
In much the same way, October of 2023 stands in stark contrast to me now as one of those moments. Shortly before my father and I embarked on our annual fishing trip, I was sitting in an office with my boss, discussing my shortcomings in my role, and accepting disciplinary action for my poor performance. I saw it coming, but this was still the pebble that before the holiday season was over would see me pushed into a life altering new role. But at the time, I buried the worry and premonitions of struggle ahead, and set my sights on going Musky fishing with my Dad.
The musky fishing isn’t known to be great at our spot, but we’ve been coming here since I was as young as my children. It’s a comfortable slice of nostalgia that fills all of the senses with warm familiarity. A flowage on the Chippewa River in Wisconsin; but not the best known flowage – its ever changing levels and floating hazards keep away the jet ski and wakeboarding crowd for the most part, even in the summer. The smallmouth bass fishery is strong – much stronger than its reputation, which keeps fishing pressure relatively low for the area. We always manage at least one 18”-20” bronzeback a year, and countless smaller examples, and constant hammer handle Northern Pike that swoop in uninvited to smash the same lure’s we are tossing for the bass. This, however, is a Musky fishing trip.
The last afternoon came on cool and cloudy, and we were for the most part content. A musky had hit a soft plastic the previous day on the light spinning gear I was throwing for Smallmouth and I got to see him on the surface before he bit off the line and swam back to the murky depths. Truthfully, I’m not sure I have the patience for 10,000 casts and that’s how I always end up throwing white flukes for the quick fix of the smallmouth bass. Dad had caught a small Pike or two, and I had a few pictures of me making funny faces with those bass – so we were happy.
All of a sudden, Dad was snagged, hard. We had quite a few of these, which tends to happen in this flowage of many rocks and logs, as we cast our Mepp’s spinners deep looking for our elusive fish. I started to move the boat over so that we could get a different angle on his snag, but his snag started to move!
He fought this fish for a strong twenty minutes, without getting it to the surface. He said to hell with this, and handed me the rod. The rod was a short stiff broom stick of a rod with an old red garcia ambassador baitcasting reel on it. The line was basically rope, and the rod was nearly bent double. Every inch I reeled in, the fish took a foot.
“I can feel head shakes!” I excitedly exclaimed.
The fish moved our boat around what used to be the mill pond area of a booming timber industry, the ancient log stacker still standing a silent vigil behind us. We had to keep an eye on the shallows, as we knew where underwater rocks hid if we got too far off course. Two small islands stood off to our right; and a few hundred yards away, the Dam.
As the fish finally surfaced, and we could get a good look at him, I was surprised that it was not the gigantic toothy monster I had expected.
“Is that a fuckin’ sturgeon?”
“Oh its…it’s in his tail!”
We had inadvertently foul hooked a sturgeon, in the ass.
The struggle boat-side continued as the fish could simply dive out of the way, and out of reach. Our net was comically too small, and no matter the “directions” I gave my father, we were not having any success.
“Alright, let’s get that net close to the water.”
“Let me lift it back up, and then get that net around its head.”
“So, what I want…”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know.”
“There! Go-Go-Go!”
All of this came to a crescendo as we leaned over and brought the fish closer to the boat. Dad’s bright red and white Mepp’s spinner caught on the gunwale of the boat and with just a slight jingle of the spinner blade, the hook popped free from the annoyed beast. With one last swipe of its tail, it dove back down to its silent sanctuary. Dad and I fell back into our seats, exhausted.
“Well,” he said, “we almost caught a sturgeon in the asshole.”
As I say, in retrospect, this was all too appropriate of a metaphor for my life at the time. Sometimes life snags you in the ass, drags you out of your comfort zone, humbles you, and wakes you up to what you are missing around you. If we can be more intentionally aware and involved with those around us, we will see it coming, and can embrace and grow from it. It doesn’t have to hurt so bad. And boy, I can hardly wait to be floating again in our old aluminum tiller v-bottom, hoping to catch that green shimmery glimpse of our state fish, or whatever else we may drag up from the bottom.
Ouisconsin Raconteur 
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