When nine-year-old Keegan Rothman set out to fish British Columbia’s Fraser River with his dad, he expected his catch might be about a metre or so long – a sizable fish that would weigh about half as much as he does.
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According Great River Fishing, the charter company the boy was on with his dad when he caught the fish, says the fish’s total length was measured at 10 feet and one inch.
“I felt like I was going to pass out”, he told CTV Vancouver.
A nine-year-old boy was astonished, when he caught this monster fish – which was bigger than him.
“[Kegan] had remarked to me that he was happy about being able to return the fish”. I was actually taking pictures of my son working the rod on the stern and the fish just came straight up, nearly like a projectile from the water with its belly pronounced toward us.
“I’ve been a professional fishing guide on the Fraser for 11 years and have fished these rivers my whole life”, Trainer said in a press release.
It almost pulled him into the water – the Fraser River, in Canada – during last Monday’s giant catch. A fight ensued. With the help of his father and their guide, Ben Trainer, they played the fish down the river.
“We have helped to collectively tag more than 61,000 white sturgeon since 1995, and scanned an excess of 122,000 tagged sturgeon, which have been caught and released”, he said.
“This is one of my largest fish I have help a client catch”, one of the Great River Fishing trainers said in a release. Most white sturgeon populations in B.C. are designated as endangered, and are protected under the federal Species At Risk Act.
The Rothmans were planning to be back on the water Thursday and to fly home Friday to New Jersey – with a fantastic fish story.
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Over the past five years, Great River Fishing Adventures have landed four monster-sized sturgeon during guided tours.
