A bad case of sturgeon burn

Ken Johnston

I have never had a burn as bad as “Sturgeon Burn.”
Last Monday my buddy Jim Armstrong and I took his boat down the Rainy River a little ways to do some walleye fishing.
After about a week of rainy days and cloudy skies that day, we fully expected that we were going to get wet.
The fishing started off slow with me catching the first fish (as per usual right Jim ;)). It was a nice walleye and we put it on our stringer.
We kept at her for about an hour before the action picked up. We each had a few nibbles then Jim nailed one. As I got up with the dip net my line had a strong hit. We got his in the boat and then mine.

A little while later I thought I had a hit... I tried reeling up and said, “Ah it is just a snag... no wait a minute... I have a log.”
A few seconds later the log surfaced. It was a 20 pound sturgeon. “Yowza” came from my mouth.
I reeled, then let some line out then reeled. This continued for several minutes until we got it up to the boat.
It was too small to keep (I think they have to be 54 inches long) and neither of us knew how to clean it anyways. We let it go.
Afterwards I started complaining about how bad my arms were burning from the struggle... well that is actually what I wanted to believe. The weather actually broke and we forgot sunscreen. But Sturgeon burn sounds better than sunburn.
–Until then,
Ken