When I was a college student aspiring to make a living by fishing, exploring and writing about it, I took a poetry class at St. John’s University taught by a Benedictine nun named Sister Eva. For the class I wrote the below poem inspired by the first overnight canoeing and camping trip my father took me on as a kid on the timeless St. Croix River in eastern Minnesota:
I rise from my worn sleeping bag, stretching in the sticky tent, humid with sweat and sand.
I watch the current sweep along the shore, pushing branches and dark water to new places.
To places where day doesn’t need to begin, to where day always was and always is.
I peer out at the passing water, remembering last night on a river that knows neither past nor future, only the current.
The breathtakingly beautiful 164-mile St. Croix River and its inhabitants — walleyes and catfish, eagles and osprey, otters and salamanders — have captivated me ever since my maiden voyage. This past October to celebrate my dad turning 70 years old, I decided to hire a fishing guide to take my father, son and me on the St. Croix River to chase arguably the strongest freshwater fish species in America: lake sturgeon.
I remembered seeing a local sturgeon guide mentioned a few years back in the “Hot Spots” section of In-Fisherman magazine — that classic two-page spread of the U.S. map with key fisheries and species highlighted — and a quick online search with customer reviews confirmed that choice of Captain Ricky Nelson of Cats on the Croix guide service.
Nelson has been fishing his entire life and guiding for 6 years, targeting catfish in the summer and sturgeon in the fall on the St. Croix River from Taylor’s Falls down to Bayport, Minnesota. Nelson has fantastic stories of countless clients catching their new personal best while battling river monsters — in many cases young kids catching fish that are 20 or 30 years old, or older!
Sturgeon fishing is great for the young and old, and for swapping stories while waiting for the big one to bite. Nelson shared a cool story of guiding an elderly gentleman from out West who at this stage of his life wanted to cross off various “bucket list” fish, including sturgeon.
Less than 5 minutes into their night-time adventure, this guy hooked a behemoth that measured 60-some inches and weighed at least 65 pounds. He was flabbergasted — and exhausted from the catch — but received no rest because mere minutes later another bite proved to be another decades-old river monster. Incredibly, it was another sturgeon in the mid 60-inch range.
Although the gentleman still had a few hours left of his guide trip, his arms could take no more and he informed Nelson he had gotten more than he hoped for and was ready to call it a night. After dropping off the client at the dock and getting the green light from his wife to keep fishing solo for another couple hours, Nelson went back out and proceeded to catch not one but TWO more 60-plus-inch sturgeon in rapid succession.
Our afternoon with Nelson didn’t produce any monsters that size, but we caught 11 sturgeon and six catfish, with the action starting immediately as you can see in the video below.
All three generations of Capecchi men enjoyed the action, and my son, Joe, became a pro at reeling in sturgeon. Joe also got to drive the boat thanks to Nelson, who is equally adept at connecting with grandsons as grandfathers. Nelson has the gift of gab that all good guides must possess, but even more importantly is a genuinely kind person.
As my father ages, he is increasingly reluctant to converse with “strangers,” but even Dad gushed to me as we drove home that night, “Boy, that Ricky sure is a nice guy!”
Seeing that excitement from my dad put a smile on my face, as does remembering our first canoeing trip decades ago, and this most recent three-generation adventure on a river that knows neither past nor future, only the current.
FYI: The first YouTube video below shows the author’s son, Joe, fighting a sturgeon that bit within 5 minutes fishing on a fine October afternoon. The second video is a montage of the group’s adventure chasing river monsters. For more info, email Ricky Nelson at catsonthecroix@gmail.com.
