Brett Baldwin and his wife Kathleen rented a house on the St. Clair River for a few days. They wanted a fishing change, so the Smethport, Pennsylvania couple decided to target sturgeon in nearby Michigan.
“We drove about six hours to our rented house on the river near the town of Pearl Beach, and started fishing for sturgeon that night,” the 26-year-old angler tells Wired2fish. “I didn’t know anything about catching them, except what I read. I learned the St. Clair River was a good spot, and earthworms were a good bait.”
That first night the Baldwins caught a few freshwater drum and catfish with earthworms. Occasionally they’d hear big fish jumping far off into the darkness of the St. Clair as it rushed by their rented house dock.
“After midnight I hooked a fish off the dock, and I thought it was just a small one,” Brett explained. “Then the line started coming up, I looked out into the river and the fish jumped completely out of the water. I knew then it was a sturgeon, and it was so strong, especially in swift river current.”
Brett fought the fish for 10 minutes and finally got it near their dock, where Kathleen tried to fit it in a big landing net.
“Only its head would fit in, and it wouldn’t bend to collapse into the net like some other fish do,” Brett said. “I saw there was a ladder on the dock leading down to the water. So I climbed down, bear-hugged the sturgeon, and somehow got back up onto the dock with the fish.”
Once on the dock the couple took a few photos of it, measured it at 63 inches, with an estimated weight of 65 pounds. Then they unhooked and released the lively fish.
“I’ve caught 40-pound muskies, and that sturgeon was a whole lot heavier,” Brett stated.
During their riverside visit the Baldwins caught three more sturgeon. But a highlight of their trip was when they hired St. Clair guide Anthony Moreschini who has run Finns Sportfishing Service. Moreschini specializes in sturgeon fishing on the St. Clair River, and he’s very good at catching big fish.
The day the Baldwin’s fished with Moreschini they caught four sturgeon, with several fish in the 45-to-65-inch range. They had a double-header on sturgeon, with Brett and Kathleen each fighting a fish.
The biggest one Brett caught, and it jumped cleanly out of the water after it was hooked 30-feet deep in the St. Clair’s swift current.
“It looked like ‘Jaws’ when that 70-Inch, 100-pounder came by the boat,” Brett said. “We fished from an anchored boat, using earthworms soaked on the bottom.”
Moreschini is a lake sturgeon specialist, with 21 years experience targeting the prehistoric-looking sportfish.
“My fishing clients have caught 177 lake sturgeon with me so far this year, and I’m trying to get 350 fish before the season ends for me in October,” Moreschini said. “Last year I produced 318 sturgeon, and all of them were released unharmed.”
Last year Moreschini’s anglers caught fish measuring 78-, 79- and 80-inches. The longest weighed about 165 pounds.
His best charter day this year was when his anglers caught and released 10 fish in a five-hour trip. One day last year his anglers caught 13 sturgeon.
“Michigan sturgeon fishing opens in mid-July and runs to mid-March,” Moreschini explained. “I usually fish for about three months, and I prefer charters running from 4 to 9 p.m.”
While Brett professed to not knowing much about lake sturgeon fishing when he arrived on the St. Clair River, it turns out he picked a prime spot and time of year to learn about it.
“Our day with Capt. Anthony we anchored and fished just a few hundred yards from our rented house,” Brett said. “I showed him where our house was, and he said we were in a great sturgeon spot, which it sure turned out to be.”
