At 6:30 a.m., Robert Wozniakiewicz powers up his 22-foot aluminum Thunder Jet boat to take clients out on a raging river in search of dinosaur-sized fish.
He loads up fishing gear and bait, along with the homemade Polish sausages and hams that his wife has prepared for his guests.
Today, the water level on the Fraser River is lower than normal. Bearing this in mind, Wozniakiewicz, a 53-year-old fishing guide who emigrated from Poland 14 years ago, guesses where this river’s famously humongous sturgeon will meander to. He plans accordingly.
Wozniakiewicz is a renowned fishing guide on the Fraser River.
“May, June, July—that’s mostly the time when the water changes a lot because the snow melts,” Wozniakiewicz tells The Epoch Times. He says it’s “probably around 3 or 4 feet lower than normal levels” on this particular morning.
Kilby Lodge, near Chilliwack, B.C. Courtesy of Robert Wozniakiewicz
“From the previous experience, you just think where the fish can move, and you go there and you scan,” he said.
Greeting his returning guest, a vacationing Englishman, they cast off. The client, Vickram Karavadra, has for several years returned every June to fish for sturgeon with Wozniakiewicz’s company, Kilby Lodge, north of Chilliwack, B.C. Karavadra dreams of a sturgeon even bigger than his nine-footer last year.
The day is sunny. But the early morning fishing is uneventful.
Wozniakiewicz roars up the engines again. They head downriver to try a spot where the fast-moving water is unstable and logs along the water’s edge offer sturgeon an escape if an angler isn’t careful enough, as the the line can easily be cut. After several hours, however, Karavadra snags a huge bite, and a giant sturgeon jumps out of the water.
It was a “pretty awesome” sight, Wozniakiewicz said.
Vickram Karavadra (right) posing with his 11.5-foot sturgeon caught in the Fraser River. Courtesy of Robert Wozniakiewicz
“She was going just right to the bank,” said Wozniakiewicz, who understands sturgeon behaviour and uses it to his advantage. “When you pull her right they go left, when you pull left they go right.” The men then “tricked” the sturgeon into steering into open water, away from the logs, by pulling in the way they hoped to avoid.
After 45 minutes, Karavadra had reeled the fish in and tired it out sufficiently for Wozniakiewicz to measure it in shallower waters while holding its jaw. “I had ten-feet-long measuring tape, and we’re like, ‘Oh, it’s too short!’” he said, adding that the sturgeon ended up measuring 11 feet, six inches, from nose to fork of the tail.
He says that’s two inches short of a world record.
(Left) Wozniakiewicz peruses Karavadra's 11.5-foot sturgeon; (Right) Karavadra displays his sturgeon. Courtesy of Robert Wozniakiewicz
Being in the presence of a “living fossil,” as sturgeons are often called, is “euphoria,” Wozniakiewicz said. The experience rendered his English guest sobbing and speechless. Wozniakiewicz said after releasing the sturgeon they made sure to celebrate: “We came back and we open a bottle of Jack Daniels and we was drinking.”
Wozniakiewicz, who made his dream of becoming a Fraser River fishing guide come true after working as a heavy-duty mechanic for years in the Alberta oil fields, first learned to fish near his childhood home in Wroclaw, Poland.
He says he fished “all my life,” though there weren’t any giant sturgeon in his homeland.
Kilby Lodge first launched eight years ago. A few years later, Wozniakiewicz quit his job as a mechanic. Then, like many Fraser River fishing tour companies, the fledgling lodge was hammered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was hard,” he said. “And the economy is not very great either... People not spending so much money as before on pleasures like that.”
Kilby Lodge guests on the Fraser River. Courtesy of Robert Wozniakiewicz
Kilby Lodge guests hail from all regions of the world. Courtesy of Robert Wozniakiewicz
But now Wozniakiewicz says he’s busy with fishing clients most days during peak season and has two other guides helping.
Wozniakiewicz’s passion for sturgeon may not extend to tagging programs and research like some other companies near Chilliwack, he says, but he gladly abides by fishing regulations aimed at conserving the species. On the Fraser River, the giant fish must be released and handled a certain way.
“They’re just amazing fish, they’re just so majestic,” Wozniakiewicz says.
Recieving guests from as far as Hong Kong and Switzerland, he knows that for many it’s a lifelong dream to catch giant sturgeon on the Fraser River. He aims to meet their high expectations by making their trip memorable.
Courtesy of Robert Wozniakiewicz
Wozniakiewicz says he wants his guests to make memories at Kilby Lodge. Courtesy of Robert Wozniakiewicz
“I always want the guys to have enjoyment in the aftermath of the fishing, we come in here, we make a fire,” he says. “We have two or three groups drinking beer or whisky. We talk about fishing, hunting.”
As for Karavadra, this fishing journey was his fourth at at Kilby Lodge. It made such an impression that he planned to return the following year with a friend with angling ambitions of his own.
“Sturgeon fishing, I always say, is addictive,” Wozniakiewicz said.
Laughing, he added: “They come once and say, ‘I just want one and I’m good.’ They get eight-footer, they come back, ‘Robert, book us next year, we want bigger one!’”
