KOOCHICHING COUNTY, Minn. - A Stillwater fisherman has caught a record-breaking lake sturgeon on Rainy River.
According to the Minnesota DNR, Jack Burke caught the 73-inch-long lake sturgeon on Friday, May 4, while he was on a three-day fishing trip with his friend Michael Orgas.
The pair caught 20 fish over the course of three days, and six of them were lake sturgeon over 60 inches. But the 73-inch beast took the state record for catch-and-release.
Burke caught the fish at 11 a.m. using a muskie rod with 80-pound braided line rigged with a circle hook and crawlers, the DNR says. It measured 73 inches long and 30 inches in girth.
“We had been having some great action and knew there were big fish in the Rainy River,” Burke told the DNR. “This particular fish took about 45 minutes to reel in. When we got it closer to the boat it blew some bubbles and came to the top. I knew it was a huge fish.”
The previous record was held by two separate fish, each 70 inches long. Those were caught on the same day in April 2017.
