(upbeat music) - It's mid-February here in Minnesota, and we're on the Scenic St. Croix.

Today we're gonna see if we can't catch a sturgeon through the ice.

Today we're joining someone who knows a thing or two about sturgeon, Darren Troseth.

Darren runs Three Rivers Fishing Adventures and specializes in sturgeon and catfish.

After a well thought out setup, Darren had our home for the next few hours ready to go.

All right, we're in the fish house and ready to go.

And we figured what a better way to catch a sturgeon than by having the guy who was caught the state record sturgeon take us out, Darren Troseth, how's it going?

- Doing all right.

We have a great day today.

Nice weather.

Finally got some good ice conditions to get out here and drive right up to the spot, you can't beat that.

- All right.

Well, here we go.

Day's just getting started.

It's about early afternoon, early to mid-afternoon now, I suppose.

And we're gonna give it a few hours as the sun starts to drop and see if we can't catch us a nice big old sturgeon.

- We're gonna put all crawlers.

We'll put a combo on this one, crawlers and fatheads, and then we'll put all fatheads on that one.

When they hit, like your bobber's just gonna, it's just gonna start bobbing like that a little bit.

It won't pull it under, it won't run with it.

We'll see them on the sonar.

And your bobber will just kind of go up and down like that.

And you just wanna set the hook right when that happens.

- [Bret] So generally, they're not gonna chase a bait up and down.

- Normally they won't, no, the way their mouth is designed, it's designed to suck it up off the bottom and they're just filtering, it's super fine silt here.

So they're just filtering out that silt to what they want to eat.

And then when we see that bobbing up and down, that's them sucking it in and spitting it out.

(upbeat music) Well that's a nice fish there.

That's definitely a sturgeon, so keep an eye on that bobber.

So walk me through if that bobber starts dancing, am I setting the hook?

Am I reeling?

What am I giving it?

- Yeah, so as soon as this starts bobbing, you just wanna set it, but now it looks like he disappeared, but kind of weird, they just kind of go down into the mud.

He's coming through the mud.

Let's see if he can find our bait here.

Hopefully he's hungry.

- [Bret] Oh boy, he's looking good.

- [Darren] Oh yeah.

- [Bret] He's looking like he might want to eat.

- Oh, he went by me, coming towards you.

Yeah, just hold it still for now.

Let me see that bobber.

Oh, I think he just swiped it with his tail or something.

- Did he turn around?

- Oh, he did turn around.

Yeah, that's a big fish.

You can see those marks.

I mean, those are two foot marks.

Now he's going back to that one over there.

Oh, that's a big fish.

- [Bret] Oh, he's on mine.

- Hold on.

I think he hit it with his tail.

Yeah, hit it, hit it, hit it.

He was right there too.

- God dang.

- Yeah, that's what we're looking for.

He might have been swiping it with his tail.

- Okay.

- Oh man.

- [Bret] I got a little excited there.

Swing and a miss, but this fish was ready for round two.

- There to the right.

That might be that same fish.

You're right at about zero, aren't you?

Yeah.

Oh, he's coming in.

- [Bret] Oh, he hit it again.

- Yeah.

Go go go.

Oh, you got that one.

- [Bret] Fish on.

- Bring in that one.

Yeah, just hold him there for a minute.

And then you can get the camera back on.

He won't get off, so there you go, reel down a little bit.

There you go.

All right, we're good.

- Sweet.

- [Both] Oh no, oh no!

- What did I say?

He won't come off.

(Bret laughing) Well.

- Sorry.

- That's all right.

I mean, what do you do?

- [Darren] You did exactly what you were supposed to do.

- Well we hooked up.

And we didn't catch it, but we hooked up with it.

There's been a number of fish coming through and they definitely seem like they've been a little active, so I'm not too upset about that.

I think we'll get another chance, I hope.

- Yeah, let's fix that bait there.

You got to feel the weight of them though.

- I got to feel the weight.

Yeah, sure did.

- That looked like a nice one just based on the rod bend.

(gentle music) - You've caught many fish, the same fish over and over again many times.

- Yeah, I think.

So one particular one I think I might've caught three or four times.

The record out here I think is eight times, the same fish has been caught.

So yeah, it's weird, there's a handful of fish that have been caught several times and it's like, I don't know if they don't learn or they're just more aggressive or what, or just to the area we're fishing, - [Bret] Thrill seekers.

- [Darren] Pretty cool to see-- - Hey guys, remember what happened last time?

We got a free ride up to the top.

They put us back.

It's not a big deal.

- Yeah, it's pretty cool.

And it just shows you how good catch and release works and how good these fish adapt to catch and release.

And to me, I mean, it's sort of passive fishing, but it's really the ultimate sport fish because it catch and releases well, it puts up a great fight, I think it's the ultimate sport fish.

- And you know the ages on some of these fish because of the tagging program.

- Yeah, so they estimated that record fish I caught was maybe 80 to 90 years old.

And obviously some of the tagging data they have, they're showing that these fish are 30 to 40 years old, some of these 50 to 60 inchers we're catching.

So as long as we respect the fishery and handle them well, our grandkids will be catching these fish.

- You got a fish coming in on the right.

Oh yeah.

- That's a long one.

That is a long one.

He's thick too.

Come on.

- We're losing him.

- Come back.

- Oh, he might be turning around.

- Yep, he did turn around.

(both laughing) - Come on.

He's active though.

He's interested.

- He's looking, he's looking for that food.

He must have got a whiff of it.

Oh, turn around, turn around.

- [Bret] He's turning around.

- He turned around.

(upbeat music) Oh, he's gonna go for that one now.

Oh, yep, yep, yep.

Yeah, yeah.

Set it, set it, set it, set it, set it, you got him?

Reel up there.

- [Dan] Oh no!

- [Darren] Oh, there he is.

Look at him.

Oh, that's a big fish.

Oh man!

- [Dan] God dang it.

(upbeat music) - [Darren] Ooh, that's a nice one.

- Yeah, that is a nice one.

- Let's get him.

Come on.

Just about on you.

Oh, did he turn?

- [Bret] He went past.

Unless he came back.

- [Darren] There's two of them down there.

- Oh yeah.

Oh yeah, right here.

- [Darren] I saw yours.

- [Bret] Unless he bumped it.

- Unless he bumped it because I don't think he was on the ground.

Two of them.

- [Bret] Yeah.

One on me, one on you.

- [Darren] That's awesome.

Oh, that's a long one right, whoa.

- He's coming back.

Oh, this one, right side, right side.

- He's got it, he's got it, he's got it.

(fishers laughing) - [Bret] Oh yeah, I'll get this other rod.

Boy Dan, what did you almost break here?

- [Dan] No worries.

- [Bret] Rod Holder is now a part of the GoPro.

All right, Dan, sweet.

That looked like a big fish too.

- He feels nice, I'll tell you that.

Not anymore.

- [Darren] Yeah, just take him nice and slow.

- Here he is.

There's his tail.

- [Bret] Oh, I see bubbles.

Oh, that might be a big fish with all those bubbles.

- [Dan] All I saw was his tail.

- [Darren] Yeah, he might make a run here.

- Yeah, there's his tail.

You can see his tail right there.

Oh yeah.

Oh, he might be tail wrapped.

All right, he's gonna come up tail first.

Oh, he's not as big as I thought.

- It's all right.

Hey, first sturgeon.

- [Bret] Right away, Dan, first sturgeon.

- First sturgeon, not a giant, but I'm okay with that.

That's still fun.

That's a heck of a fight.

He's a strong fish, and boy, that's cool, that was fun.

Fun to see him on the live scope and come in and take it and watch that bobber go and throw a rod holder around him.

(all laugh) - [Bret] Your rod holder's on the GoPro.

- Yeah.

That's awesome, yeah.

Just cool fish.

(upbeat music) - I would say this has been probably a typical night for catching sturgeons through the ice.

Like we could have easily had, you know, three fish, four fish maybe, so we just missed a couple.

And we do have some skunks out here and it's just part of the deal.

So some might call this relaxing, some might call it boring.

It's just a different type of fishing and there's not a lot of places you can go to catch sturgeon through the ice.

So that's what makes it kind of cool, you know.

- Well we've had action the whole time.

I mean, for the most part, now here, late in the day, it's about 10, 10:30, things have slowed down.

But when you've got electronics like this where you can see fish coming in, you can see them coming in from, you know, 10 feet away or so on either side.

There's definitely a couple moments there where always ready to probably set the hook right through the top of the shelter right there, I was so excited about it.

So it's been fun.

- Most likely as we get all packed up, we'll probably start seeing fish as we're packing up.

That's usually how it happens.

You pack up and you see fish.

- Well it happened to us last time we filmed, Darren.

So you never know.

We're gonna start getting packed up here now, but you never know, we'll probably catch one right as we're getting ready to leave.

(gentle music) So we're getting packed up and we got all the rods put away and we walk back in here and of course there's a sturgeon on the live scope.

So we're gonna give it a Hail Mary here, one last chance.

- [Darren] There's one on you and then there's one at the right of the screen.

- [Bret] There's no way this is gonna happen.

- [Darren] There's definitely still one down there right next to you.

- Oh!

- Oh, did you miss him?

- He hit it.

Oh no!

Ah!

He's on it, he's on it.

- [Darren] Yeah?

- Yeah, I'm pretty sure he is.

- [Darren] Get him?

There might be a mud puppy on there.

Reel up.

- Maybe that's what it is.

- [Darren] You feel any weight?

There's a mud puppy on there.

Hey, you're not skunked.

- Not skunked.

- [Darren] You ever caught a mud puppy?

- I have not.

- Well you're about to see it.

There you go.

- There it is.

- [Darren] That there is a mud puppy.

- She's not happy.

- [Darren] Nope.

- [Bret] Well it's not a sturgeon.

- [Darren] Mud puppy is just basically a aquatic salamander.

You see their gills are like on the outside of their gill plates here.

They're kind of mysterious.

They're pretty cool looking.

- [Bret] We're leaving now.

- You know what's gonna happen, right?

- We're all done.

I'm reeling up.

- We're all packed up.

- There we go.

I'm all reeled up.

Let's put the rods away.

It's never easy to leave when you know there's a state record swimming down there, but it will have to wait for another day.

- Can't believe you're quitting already.

- Okay.