CONFEDERATION continued from pg 37
header. Most of them are tagged, but Yves is happy to put tags on new fish, as he seldom gets the opportunity to fish the nursery. In three hours we boat 36 sturgeon; 12 of which needed tags; a good morning’s work. After lunch we jet upstream for thirty minutes. It
is February, the sun is warm, there is no wind, and the Fraser is majestic. We drop anchor and start again, although now we have to wait a while. The first fish is larger than anything we have seen so far, and Yves is careful not to lift it without a special support. Larger fish are prone to organ damage when lifted out of the water. We drift downstream and pick up five more. Yves is watching a boat across the river. As soon as it moves, we pull anchor, and zip across the muddy water. It is getting late. A chill descends. But then, on the last cast, or so I thought, I am into the biggest fish yet. Ten minutes later, Yves is busy reading its tag, while Sue and Adrian admire my catch. Two rods are still in their holders, and one of them is tapping. I grab the butt and lift. “Fish on!” I yell, followed by, “I can’t hold it!” The drag is set tight and I am being pulled across the boat. Do I let go or go in? Discretion or valour? In the nick of time the drag slips, and I regain my balance. Without warning, the fish makes a powerful run, and the line is cutting upwards through the water. Leviathan emerges from the river, and crashes backwards. Yves declares, “We are going in,” which, we learn, means driving the jet boat up on a sandbar, and our getting into the water to finish the job. And thirty minutes later, this is just what we do. In the shallows the giant knows the game is up, and becomes docile. Yves unhooks the fish, measures it, reads the tag, and takes a couple of photos. And then it’s over. With a couple of strokes of its huge tail, the fish is gone.
Six months later I find myself in, of all places, the
big pool at the end of the Petawawa River. My wife and I are staying at The Point, where her son Jem has a cottage overlooking the Ottawa. I am in a plastic kayak and young Jacob is on a paddle board. We edge up the side of the pool, and then turn at the granite outcrops for a free ride with the current. Jacob goes first, gets half-way down the pool, and freezes. He is peering into the water, and is having difficulty breathing. “Grandpa,” he gasps, “there’s…a…fish and it’s longer than my board!” I paddle quickly, but the fish sinks from view as I close in. Jacob was then eight years old, very capable and not inclined to exaggerate. Even before we entered the pool, we had seen a couple of sturgeon nearly four feet long, quite ordinary to his eyes. He was in shock. Could this have been my fish of 1967? Canadian
sturgeon are known to live as long as 155 years, so it was conceivably, but improbably, the same fish. It’s immaterial. But it is nice to know that swimming in the rivers of Canada are creatures that could be older than Canada itself. What a fish! What a country!
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