Taggin' Sauger on The Larry

[JustinHoffman]

Hello All,

 

Had the honour, and definite pleasure, to spend today fishing the St. Lawrence with Marc Thorpe. Left Marc's place by 5:30am, as we all know the "early fish catches the worm."

 

Began on a mud/sand bottom, in approx. 23 feet of water, and set up for jigging some sauger. Heavy jig heads, plastic ribbon tails, stinger hooks, and half a nightcrawler were the bait of choice.

Fish were definitely finicky during the early hours, with hits being very subtle, and the trailers accounting for all of the fish brought to the net.

 

Here is a typical fish:

 

 

Marc was taking part in a sauger tagging study, to determine size, numbers, and other pertinent data. Extremely fascinating stuff, and information that is crucial in order for this species to continue to flourish.

 

Tagging a fish:

 

 

The tag number corresponds to length, date, and area data:

 

 

An egg-laden female:

 

 

Similar to "no two snowflakes are the same," the colourations on these saugers are both unique and very interesting:

 

 

Spent a portion of the afternoon short-lining for walleye. Still shaking my head at how little line we set out when working Rebel cranks! The ongoing fronts, and the still cold water and little weed growth seemed to of affected the fish this day. No walleye to report, but the change of pace and lively conversation made up for it.

 

With the sun out in full swing, we headed back to our first stop to pick at a few more sauger, and end the day off. Fish were hitting much more aggressively at this later time, and the main hook was getting the brunt of the attention.

 

Here is the big fish of the day - 48 cm's:

 

 

Love this next sequence....the release shot:

 

 

And swimming to the depths with it's new badge of honour:

 

 

All together, we put 21 sauger in the boat - missed and lost quite a few in addition to those, though.

 

 

Awesome spending the day with you, Marc.

 

Top-class company, first-rate knowledge, and an overall nice guy. Thanks!

 

Good Fishing,

 

Justin

[TDunn]

Awesome....looks like you guys had a blast....

Its great to see professionals putting forth time and effort towards tagging fish and displaying your true passion for the future of the sport...

Thanks Justin for the report

 

TDunn

Edited June 3, 2009 by TDunn

[Marc Thorpe]

tks Justin,was a wonderful day out with you

a little cold in the morning but some sun sure warms things up

 

congrats on the front covers

[Big Cliff]

Wonderful report Justin, it brought back some very fond memories of our trip with Marc. Thanks for sharing.

[Roy]

Great report Justin. Glad you had a good day. The weather looked pretty good out there. Last evening would have been the best night of the week weatherwise for shortlining but I was stuck in the house with Miss Birthday woman and kept going out on the deck to check the weath...errr BBQ.

As for Marc, he certainly does put back a lot more into the resource than we know about.

You have some great pictures there Justin, thanks for taking the time to post the report. It was a very long day for you to be posting it so soon.

[Chris]

Very nice Justin, congrats on the mag covers too!

 

Hey Thorpe, nice hair man!!!

[John]

Hey, I know that spot.....Great report Justin, thanks for sharing. Big Cliff, Barbara and I had two amazing days out there with Marc as you know. Great cover shots by the way!

[Zubris21]

Great stuff! I think this is the first Sauger report I've seen since joining. Another species I'd like to add to my list!

[Crazyhook]

 

 

 

Nice fish guys! thanks for the report

Edited June 4, 2009 by Crazyhook

[Marty]

Whew. I'm glad I read the entire report. At first I thought Marc was setting up a quick strike rig.

 

Nice report.

[Marc Thorpe]

I can lend you hair Crazyhook and Chris

[Terry]

looks like a good day of fishing

 

I am guessing it was too cold for Marc to wear his kilt

[Headhunter]

Nice job guys! Funny, but that first Sauger looks to be smiling... not allowed you know!

HH

[John]

looks like a good day of fishing

 

I am guessing it was too cold for Marc to wear his kilt

 

He had it on at Roys Terry, you should see the size of his Sporran......

[gone_fishin]

a few of those fish looked like they had a bit of a white tip on the bottom of their tail... are they possibly hybrid saugeyes (walleye / sauger mix)??? from what i understand the saugeye has similar markings to the sauger but also has the white tip on the tail like a walleye...