Massive sturgeon caught in Old Man River in Lethbridge
After casting his line into the Old Man River for about 60 hours over several days with barely a nibble, Blair Murphy was starting to think he was cursed. Then he hooked a whopper.
There aren't any scales or measuring tapes when you're sitting on the banks waiting for a bite, but Murphy figures the sturgeon he pulled out of the water on the southern edge of Lethbridge was between 130 and 140 pounds (59 to 63.5 kilograms) — likely a record.
"Anytime somebody catches a fish like this, there's always going to be people out there to nitpick on it," he said.
"Oh, whatever, I don't care. It's a fish."
'Quite the battle'
One thing he does know is that it fought hard and left its mark. Murphy says he has five or six stitches in his arm and bruised ribs from falling while trying to reel in the massive fish.
"It was quite a battle," said Murphy, talking by phone, back at the river where he landed his sturgeon.
He says he couldn't have reeled in the fish without the help of two younger guys who were down by the river that day. They helped him with his line and with pulling the fish into a net after running up and down the banks trying to keep the massive sturgeon on the line.
"Normally you just grab a hold of it and pick it up yourself but, I mean, I guess you could see I was on my knees," he said, referring to a photo of him with his catch. "It was a beast."
Swim in from Saskatchewan
Murphy caught his sturgeon, which he released back into the river, at the western edge of the fish's habitat, and he says you can see them in the Old Man River for only about a month each year.
"They come in from Lake Diefenbaker. All the way from Saskatchewan up," he said.
"I never seen anything.… I heard about people catching ones that were 100 pounds, the odd one, right? But not very big. I was here last night and a lady caught one about 49 inches. We figured it was about 60 pounds and that's a hell of a big fish."
Murphy, an avid fisher, has caught a bigger sturgeon, but that was in the Fraser River in B.C. with a guide who knew just where to take him and his friends.
When fishing the rivers of southern Alberta, patience is a fundamental skill.
"The definition of insanity — you know, I tell my friends this — is doing the same thing over and over, except when it comes to fishing. Because if you don't stick with it, you're not going to get something, right?" said Murphy.
An avid fisherman
He fishes in the river not far from his Lethbridge home and in the pond up the hill that's even closer. In the summers, Murphy travels to Montana, but he isn't sure that will be possible this year with COVID-19 restrictions.
But at least the pandemic has given him time.
"With this COVID thing, I'm not working right now. My kids are doing an hour and half of school work each day, and that's it. So there's time, right?" he said.
"Humans, we need human interaction, and sometimes the only way you get any is you come down to the river bottom and you talk to some people and you're all supporting one another. So, it kind of breaks up the … oh, I just had a little nibble. Could have been a sucker."
