This is one to remember.
According to the Grand Forks Herald, 14-year-old Dawson Erickson and his nine-year-old sister, Ava, set out to the dock alongside their dad Kevin at Ballard’s Resort in Near Baudette, Minnesota last Sunday.
The Thief River Falls residents were out trying to catch some sturgeon before heading back home for Mother’s Day.
Unfortunately, Kevin’s wife Alicia couldn’t be there.
He told the outlet:
“She was just sick that she couldn’t be here, and we thought, ‘Well, we’ll open up the camper and just fish a little bit from the dock.’ My boat’s still in storage.”
They had been out fishing for two hours with no luck.
Kevin continued:
“They’d been jumping here all morning. We could see some nice ones, but I thought, ‘Well, you know, give it some time.’ ”
Next thing you know, they felt something MASSIVE pulling on the fishing line:
“It gave a few taps, and Dawson’s like, ‘I hope that’s a fish.’ We’d been trying all morning.”
Those two taps turned into a wild battle for the Franklin Middle Schooler, and was fighting the sturgeon for an hour, when Jason Laumb and three of his buddies pulled into a nearby dock for a lunch break.
In perfect timing, they got there just as Kevin was laying at the end of the dock trying to lift the fish from the water.
Laumb said:
“I thought he was snagged at first – 100%. Then, when I saw that the sinker was visible, I figured these guys needed help.”
Laumb ran over, laid on the dock alongside Kevin, and the two were able to get a good grip on each end of the massive sturgeon, which was nearly as wide as the dock.
Laumb continued:
“I grabbed onto the mouth, got my hand in the mouth and wrapped my other arm on its midsection, and his dad and I hoisted it up.
I knew it was a big fish, but I didn’t realize how big it was until I got over there and saw that big old noggin on that thing.
It’s a good thing I have long arms. That is the biggest sturgeon I’ve ever had my hands on.”
The sturgeon ultimately measured 70 inches long with a girth of 27 1/4 inches and weighed about 91 pounds, according to a length weight chart from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
It was also estimated to be about 51-years-old.
In conclusion, Kevin said:
“Something like that, you don’t want to bother trying to weigh it. You just get the length and girth, and you can get pretty close. That thing was unbelievably heavy.”
