Sturgeon Fishing on the Fraser River

Introduction

The following post is written by my best friend and mother. It is the first post here to be written by someone other than myself, so it should be a refreshing change of pace and style. In this post, my mother provides a retelling of a family trip to the Fraser River Lodge in BC Canada. Enjoy!

One of the jetboats being launched on the Fraser

July 16, 2024

About a year ago I watched a video with Luke about John Locker (whose youtube channel name is The Fish Locker) sturgeon fishing on the Fraser River in British Columbia. “Wow, that looks fantastic!”, I thought. And, as it turns out, it really was!!

Our family headed up to the Fraser River Lodge on July 14 and early on the morning of July 16th, two big fishing boats towed by pickups pulled up to the lodge. They made a nice sound on the gravel driveway and everyone was excited for this adventure! We met our guides, Dallas and Michael, and hopped in to the trucks for a quick drive to the put- in on the Fraser River.

The “kids” (Luke, Teagan, Nat and Skye) went with Dallas and John and I went with Michael. The boats were big and powerful and covered, which was nice because it was so hot out. They were both 19ish feet long and powered by inboard jets. Jet boats excel at accessing very shallow water since, which can prove vital when out on rivers.

Jet boats awaiting the day of Sturgeon fishing

The Fraser is a big river: wide, long and fast. We accessed it near the small town of Agassiz near Chilliwack which is about an hour and a half from Vancouver. It is in a beautiful river valley surrounded by mountains and large corn farms. There is lots of fishing on the Fraser but it’s famous for sturgeon.

Sturgeon are prehistoric-looking creatures with armor plates on their backs that are very sharp. They are bottom fish and have no teeth. There are a lot of them in the Fraser River. They are strictly protected; only catch and release. Our boat had a nice Humminbird fish finder and you could see there were a lot of them.

Sturgeon fishing involves driving your boat to a good spot, setting the anchor, setting up the rods and waiting until a fish decides to bite.

We headed out onto the river and Michael set the anchor and then set up the rods. They were big rods to which he attached a 32 oz weight and bait. The bait, either lamprey or sockeye salmon, were each about 4 inches long and the lamprey proved to be very effective. Then Michael heaved the rod in a cast and put it in a holder. Then we waited.

After a few stops, John caught a nice one! As we headed up the river, we saw fantastic scenery and lots of jumping sturgeon and soaring eagles.

John’s nice catch!

Around lunchtime, we met up with the other boat and had some lunch on a big, rocky sandbar. After lunch, Luke joined John and I and we continued to head up the river. At the next stop, Luke had a couple bites and then caught a nice sized one.

Now, it was my turn! I had been looking forward to this trip for awhile but never really expected to catch one of these incredible fish.

This sturgeon almost pulled me in!

Michael set up all the rods and we waited and snoozed in the hot sun for quite awhile and then one of the lines dipped!! Michael grabbed it and set the hook for me and then handed the rod to me. It was so heavy all I could do was hold onto the rod with both hands! Luke jumped up to help and started reeling for me while I tried to hold onto the rod and pull it up. Michael put the belt on me so I could have more leverage but it was still all I could do to hold on. I tried to reel and maybe made a few turns but it was too hard. Finally, Luke pulled the fish into the blue cradle for pictures and then release. This fish was 50 inches long and 50 pounds! It was a super exciting few minutes and an experience I will never forget!!! It was extra fun to be able to do that as a team event with Luke!

After eight hours on the river, it was time to head back to the lodge for some home-cooked bison burgers and wonder...did that really happen??!!!