Catching Dinosaurs

The most extraordinary catch and release fishing experience in the world is hiding an hour north of Whistler BC.

This experience might ruin every other fishing trip you take.

Most people have heard of sturgeon in the context of caviar. A delicacy. Something that comes in a small tin at a very expensive restaurant. What most people have never done is stand waist-deep in a glacial river in British Columbia with their arms wrapped around one that is longer than they are tall and outweighs them by two hundred pounds. That experience is available, repeatable, and will probably ruin every other fishing trip for you.

An hour north of Whistler, past the ski town energy and up into wilder terrain, sits a small community called Lillooet on the banks of the Fraser River, one of the largest and most powerful rivers in Canada. The Fraser is home to white sturgeon, one of the oldest species of fish on the planet.

These things look exactly like what they are: living dinosaurs. No teeth. No spines. Just an ancient, armoured, prehistoric creature that can grow over eight feet long and push 400 pounds. They have been doing exactly what they do for longer than most species have existed, and somehow, they ended up in a river you can reach by lunchtime from one of the most famous ski towns in the world.

The operation is run by Sea-To-Sky Fishing Adventures, owned and operated by Geoff Kyle, who you may recognize as my favourite snow bike guide in Whistler. Geoff's summer season businesses equally extraordinary.

Twenty plus years on the Fraser. A 24-foot aluminium jet boat. And access to spots on this river that he will not show you on a map.

Here is how the day works. You load up on the jetboat in Lillooet and blast upriver through canyons and rapids, which is already worth the trip on its own. Geoff wedges the boat up against the rocky shoreline, sets the heavy rods baited with salmon roe into the deep current, and then the waiting begins.

Giant weights, massive rods, and your eyes locked onto the rod tips as they bounce and wiggle with the current. You are watching for one specific movement. A yank. A sturgeon feeding is not dramatic from above the surface. They are bottom feeders with enormous vacuum mouths, and they simply cruise along the riverbed inhaling whatever they find. But when that rod tip pulls, everything changes. Geoff Kyle screaming "fish on!" is one of the great sounds in outdoor adventure. He moves like a fire alarm went off. He yanks the rod, sets the hook, and hands it to you. And then you understand what you are dealing with.

A 300-pound fish in a river running at thousands of cubic feet per second is not something you are prepared for the first time. The reel screams. The rod bends in half. The sturgeon turns into the current and the combined force nearly takes you over the rail. Geoff is simultaneously un-wedging the boat, firing the jets, and chasing the line downriver at full speed because if that spool runs out, the fish is gone. I have had fights that lasted over an hour and covered eight miles of river. I have also lost big ones when we could not move fast enough. Both experiences are unforgettable for different reasons.

When you finally win, when the sturgeon tires and lets you bring it close, Geoff hops into the water and physically guides it to the shallows. And here is the thing about sturgeon that nobody tells you. They have no natural predators. Nothing in nature threatens them. So, when they reach the shore, they simply stop. They concede. They sit in the shallows with a kind of prehistoric calm while you climb in next to them and take the most ridiculous photo of your life. I have brought people out on this boat who were outweighed and outsized by their catch. I watched my two youngest kids pass a rod back and forth for nearly 70 minutes, both of them holding on together, before finally wading in to lift that fish. It is one of the coolest things I have ever witnessed as a parent.

Then you do it again. And again. A full day on the Fraser runs six to fifteen fish depending on conditions. The rhythm becomes addictive: cold beer, rod tips, conversation, then complete chaos, then back to cold beer.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, Geoff fires up the barbecue mounted right on the jet boat. His partner Adventures in Catering prepares an unreal spread, and suddenly you are on a remote river in the British Columbia wilderness, rods in the water, food on the grill, cold drink in hand, with one of the most spectacular landscapes on earth all around you. It is hard to think of a better day.

Geoff is serious about conservation and so is the entire community on the Fraser. Every sturgeon is tagged and tracked. These fish are protected for good reason and the catch and release ethic is absolute. You are there to experience them, photograph them, and let them go back to doing what they have been doing for millions of years. There are only a handful of places in the world where you can fish for sturgeon legally.

This is my number one, without hesitation. If you fish, or even if you think you might like to, this is a day that will reset your benchmark for what an incredible outdoor experience actually feels like. Catching a fish is nothing. Catching a dinosaur is something else entirely. Reject Average will be running a full week-long sturgeon fishing derby on the Fraser at the end of August. If you want in, reach out at brant@rejectaverage.com.