B.C. fishing guide hooks 300-kilogram sturgeon on Fraser River James Keller, THE CANADIAN PRESSVANCOUVER - It took Rod Toth and the four men he was guiding nearly three hours to wrestle a mammoth, 300-kilogram sturgeon to the shores of B.C.'s Fraser River, and only then did they realize the size of the giant fish they were chasing. "I really didn't know until the end, but after about an hour and a half, I said, 'guys, we've got something special on here,"' says Toth, 40, who runs Bent Rods Guiding and Fishing Co. in Chilliwack, B.C. "They can actually pull the boat around the river." It was a beautiful day last week for a fishing trip on the Fraser, says Toth, and the four men in the boat were all out-of-towners, three of them tackling the river for the first time. They baited their first hook of the day with a piece of salmon, and quickly had a bite. "It actually felt like it hooked up on bottom at first, and then slowly it started to move and off it went," says Toth. The men took turns trying to reel up the giant fish, pulling the sturgeon close to the surface only to have it dart back down to the bottom. That went on for two hours, 45 minutes. "We were all tired," says Toth. "It's painstaking with that big a fish. It goes on and on. "When we got it, we had three guys grabbing its mouth and one fellow grabbed its fins and kept it so it could breath water, so we very slowly took it to shore." It wasn't until then that Toth and his group were able to get a good look at the prehistoric beast, which at three metres long and 1.4 metres around was the largest fish Toth has ever caught. Two other guides who happened to be watching from the beach also helped bring the fish into shallow water, tag it and release it back into the river. Toth set a personal record, and for the four men on the tour - two from Vernon, B.C., and two from Calgary - it's a heck of a fishing tale to bring home. "For a guide, you're always waiting for that fish, so for me it's just excitement," says Toth. "Three of the guys, the first sturgeon they'd ever seen in their life was a mammoth. Now when they book again, I've got my work cut out for me." Sturgeon can live 100 years or more, and can grow as large as six metres long, though most are much smaller than that. White sturgeon are listed as a threatened species by the province, and endangered by the federal government. The Fraser River Sturgeon Conservation Society estimates there were about 46,000 sturgeon in the lower Fraser River as of last year, down from 58,000 in 2004. The fish are popular for poachers, said the society's Troy Nelson, but that's not the biggest problem facing the species. "The biggest thing of all is habitat - habitat loss and habitat alteration in the river," Nelson said. "That's not just affecting sturgeon as an individual animal, but their food supply". Nelson said recent data indicate older sturgeon appear to be living longer while there are fewer younger fish entering the stock, though it's not clear why. The tag that was put on last week's massive catch will help the society track the stock's population, which it has been doing since 1999.
