ManitobaWhen Corwyn Janicek set up along the Red River in Winnipeg to do some fishing last weekend, he hoped to get a few nibbles, not catch something in his own weight class.’I didn’t know how big it was until it came to the surface’: Corwyn JanicekDarren Bernhardt · CBC News · Posted: Oct 23, 2025 2:51 PM EDT | Last Updated: 1 hour agoListen to this articleEstimated 4 minutesCorwyn Janicek poses with his big catch from Oct. 18. (Submitted by Corwyn Janicek)When Corwyn Janicek set up along the Red River in Winnipeg to do some fishing last weekend, he hoped to get a few nibbles, not catch something in his own weight class.”The thing’s the dinosaur. It was like a large dog, almost. It was really heavy,” he told CBC Manitoba’s Up to Speed guest host Chloe Friesen in a Wednesday interview.”Generally, this time of year the fishing is pretty slow. So it was pretty shocking to hook into such a monster.”What Janicek caught was a 1.3-metre lake sturgeon, which is Manitoba’s largest freshwater fish.The largest recorded one caught in Manitoba came from the Roseau River in 1903. It was more than three metres long and weighed 184.6 kilograms (406 pounds), according to Manitoba’s Fisheries Branch.And they literally come from the age of dinosaurs.The largest captured lake sturgeon reported in Manitoba came from the Roseau River in 1903. (Manitoba Museum)They are often referred to as living fossils or prehistoric relics because their ancestors date back over 100 million years, and their appearance — a bony-plate armored covering and a shark-like tail — has changed very little over that time.”It has very rough skin,” Janicek said.’Had to put my whole back into it’He and a couple of friends cast their lines near The Forks around 2 p.m. on Oct. 18.”We waited hours and hours and hours with no bites,” Janicek said.They were about to pack things up around 5:30 p.m. when Janicek’s rod had a little tug — that soon became a much larger one. “Whatever it was, it just went running, just kept peeling my line. I’ve never had any other fish do that to me … and I was like, oh wow, this must be a huge fish,” he said. “But I didn’t know how big it was until it came to the surface.”The reveal didn’t happen until about 15-20 minutes into the give-and-take struggle.”I had to put my whole back into it,” Janicek said.He got it onto the concrete pier and laid it out for a quick measurement and pic before releasing it back into the murky water.As he was measuring the fish, a passerby asked if he could take a video. Janicek said yes, and the video quickly went viral online.There was a lot of good feedback, but also a couple of comments from people who didn’t appreciate the sturgeon being pulled out of the water.”I do get [it], but I did want to get a quick measurement and it is allowed to take them out of the water for a brief second. So I took that opportunity,” Janicek said.”I handled the fish with care and I got it back in the water as soon as I could. So there was no harm done.”Then I sent it on its way so it could live another day.”Lake sturgeon were once plentiful in the Assiniboine and Red rivers, as well as others part of the Lake Winnipeg system, but they were believed to have been extirpated in some areas due to overharvesting.To recover the population, Manitoba Fisheries added some 16,000 young sturgeon from captive-bred stocks into the Assiniboine from 1996 to 2008, and an additional 15,000 fry in 2013.Lake sturgeon captures are now frequently reported by anglers and stocks in most river reaches are either stable or increasing.Juvenile lake sturgeon have been used to recover the population in Manitoba. (C. McDougall/Manitoba Hydro)Three Lake Sturgeon over 1.9 metres in length have been reported by anglers to the Manitoba Master Angler Program in the past 25 years. Most commonly, though, they range from about 90 centimetres to 1.5 metres and weigh in at five to 35 kilograms.There are also a wide variety of reports on how long they live. One sturgeon from the Lake of the Woods reportedly reached 154 years of age, but a lake sturgeon management strategy from Manitoba casts doubt on the accuracy of that report.The Manitoba document claims the average lifespan is 55 years for males and 80 for females.ABOUT THE AUTHORDarren Bernhardt has been with CBC Manitoba since 2009 and specializes in offbeat and local history stories. He is the author of two bestselling books: The Lesser Known: A History of Oddities from the Heart of the Continent, and Prairie Oddities: Punkinhead, Peculiar Gravity and More Lesser Known Histories.With files from Chloe Friesen and Sofía Peralta-Baron
Winnipegger hooks ‘dinosaur’ sturgeon from Red River near The Forks
