When I was about 9, I went mackerel fishing in Penobscot Bay with my family. I caught 11 fish. We brought them home, and I ate mine with mayonnaise. Then I probably watched “Indiana Jones.”
Anyway, that was a good day and was by far the most fish I’d caught in one trip.
But in Chilliwack, British Columbia, a New Jersey 9-year old has a way better fish story.
Kegan Rothman caught and landed a Great White Sturgeon on June 29 while fishing Fraser River in Chilliwack, which is just east of Vancouver. The fish was estimated to weigh 600 pounds.
It took the 4-foot tall kid — with some help from his dad and their guide — just under two hours to bring the fish in. They released the fish after catching it.
“It is the most excitement I’ve ever had with a fish. It was so hard to hold onto the rod. I thought the fish was going to pull me into the water,” he said.
The guide, Ben Trainer, estimated the fish to be 75 years old.
Gulf of Maine sturgeon have officially been listed as endangered species since 2012, but it had been illegal to fish for them for more than a decade before that.
University of New England researchers in 2013 netted a 7-foot, 250-pound Atlantic Sturgeon in the Saco River — which meant good news for a waterway that hadn’t seen one of the prehistoric fish for 60 years.
Here’s a 2009 video of Atlantic Sturgeon leaping out of the Kennebec River. Researchers have said they jump either to remove parasites, or communicate with other fish and equalize pressure in their swim bladder.