BAUDETTE, Minn. – It was another smoky day in the border country, but on this early August afternoon, the haze above didn’t matter – the focus lurked somewhere beneath the surface of the Rainy River.
For Kevin Hinrichs of Baudette and two 13-year-olds – son Jeffrey and nephew Alex Vadner, who was visiting from Wanamingo, Minn. – the plan was both simple and relaxing: Drop anchor, spend a few hours on the river and soak some bait in hopes of enticing a lake sturgeon or two into biting.
In between, there’d be ample opportunity to shoot the breeze, ponder the meaning of life and burn through nightcrawlers and frozen shiners while catching a mixed bag of fish that might include walleyes, saugers, redhorse, mooneyes and suckers.
This time of year on the Rainy River, you never know what you’re going to catch. Such is life when you run a sturgeon camp and target the underwater giants at every opportunity, whether for fun with a couple of avid 13-year-olds, or as a border country sturgeon guide.
“Never not fishing” is Hinrichs’ motto and it’s not an exaggeration. He calls his 24-foot pontoon the “Warship,” saying that doing battle with a big sturgeon is like a war.
That’s not an exaggeration, either.
Moving north
Hinrichs and his wife, Jennifer, bought the Royal Dutchman Resort on the Rainy River east of Baudette in October 2020 in the teeth of the COVID-19 pandemic.
They’d looked at several cabins over the years in the border country, thinking they’d move north and find jobs, Hinrichs recalls, but found nothing to their liking until they looked at the Royal Dutchman.
So it was that Hinrichs left his job managing a rock pit – he drove a payloader, loaded semis and dump trucks – and moved the family north from Zumbrota, Minn.
“We didn’t think – that was the biggest thing,” Hinrichs said. “We saw it. We liked it. We decided to buy it. I’ll tell you this – of the people who would have cold feet, I was the one who was like, ‘Are we sure this is what we want to do?’ My wife was the one who said, ‘Yes, this is what we’re going to do.’”
And so he became “The Dutchman” and she became “The Duchess.” In addition to son Jeff, they have a daughter, Vera, who’ll be 15 in September.
“If the world was going to be coming to an end (because of COVID), I might as well be rocking a resort,” Hinrichs said. “And it turned out, as we see, the world didn’t end. And actually, business that first year was probably the best that we ever had.”
The Sturgeon King reign begins
Given its location on the Rainy River, the Royal Dutchman historically attracted sturgeon anglers – especially in the spring and fall, when the biggest fish are caught – but previous owners didn’t market the place as a “sturgeon resort,” Hinrichs says.
Kevin Hinrichs — aka “The Dutchman” — of Baudette, Minn., calls his 24-foot pontoon boat the “Dutchman’s Warship.” It’s a fitting name, Hinrichs says, because tangling with a big Rainy River sturgeon can be a real war. Hinrichs, who lays claim to the unofficial title of “Sturgeon King,” spends a lot of time guiding and fishing for the prehistoric fish. (Brad Dokken / Forum News Service)
As new owners, Hinrichs and his wife decided to change that.
“Being a new guy, a new kid on the block, I saw it as an opportunity,” he said. “I actually talked to a guy that I met up here, and he’s like, there is no Sturgeon King – everybody’s all walleye, walleye, walleye, walleye – and he says, ‘You could be that guy.’
“I sat and I looked at our location and where we were and how we could operate, and I thought – you know what, he’s right, I am going to be the Sturgeon King.”
Before buying the resort, Hinrichs says, the only sturgeon he’d ever caught was a small one he pulled through the ice on Lake Pepin in southeast Minnesota.
“I had a lot of fishing to do to get the credibility that it takes to be amongst the crowd, so that’s what I do,” Hinrichs said. “When I say ‘Never not fishing,’ I mean it.”
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His posts on the Royal Dutchman Resort Facebook page – part fishing report, part Northwoods philosophy – also have attracted a following. Hinrichs often ends his posts with, “For those about to fish, we salute you,” a tribute to the 1981 album “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)” by AC/DC, one of his favorite bands.
People fishing with him have caught sturgeon over 70 inches during the prime spring months.
“The memories that you make – that is what catching sturgeon is really about,” Hinrichs said. “Most often, I’m part of a life-lasting memory that you’re never going to forget because it’s often going to be the biggest fish you’re ever going to catch in your life.”
Summer sturgeon
Sturgeon fishing generally isn’t a numbers game, and the fish that come onboard the Warship in the summer tend to run smaller than the behemoths that cruise the river in the spring to spawn in the Rainy and its tributaries.
Kevin Hinrichs nets a small sturgeon for his son, Jeffrey, on Friday, Aug. 1, 2025, during a few hours of fishing on the Rainy River near Baudette, Minn. (Brad Dokken / Forum News Service)
Having a gift for gab definitely helps pass the time between bites, Hinrichs says.
“The reality of sturgeon fishing when you become a sturgeon guide, you realize that you have to have good people skills because it’s a lot of sitting around and waiting,” Hinrichs said. “If you can’t keep the morale and the attitude up there, people are going to want to leave. They’re going to want to go, ‘Let’s just call it a day, they’re not biting.’ When you know at some point in your mind, they’re going to open up and bite if I can keep them in my boat long enough.”
Summer tends to be the season of the “keeper” sturgeon, Hinrichs says, those 45- to 50-inch fish (or over 75 inches) the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources allows anglers to keep during limited harvest seasons in the spring and fall if they buy a special $5 tag.
The harvest limit is one per calendar year.
“Everybody thinks sturgeon are only here in the river in the spring, and they’re very mistaken,” Hinrichs said. “I’ve had (summer) trips where we’ve gone out and caught five or six fish over 55 inches, with a 69¾-incher topping the list as the big one.”
Typically, Hinrichs averages five to 15 sturgeon trips a month in the summer – it runs in spurts, he says – though he did “48 or 50 trips” in 45 days earlier this year between six-hour morning and evening excursions.
“I stacked a lot of trips in a short little bit of time,” he said.
Walleyes, of course, are a draw in the spring and again in the fall, but “the tug is the drug” when it comes to sturgeon fishing, Hinrichs says.
“I always tell people the sturgeon is something that when you hook up, it’s something that you can’t explain – it can only be felt,” he said. “Even that 50-inch fish, you think you’ve got the biggest, baddest fish of your life on (the line), which you do. As far as freshwater fish in the United States of America, you’re not going to fight a much badder fish when it comes to the fight, than a sturgeon.”
Enjoyable evening
There’d be no big sturgeon – the true “dinos,” as Hinrichs calls them – brought to the Warship on this hazy August afternoon, but a number of large fish jumped nearby, as if taunting us. Chris Dickerson of Boone, Miss., who was staying at the resort, landed a 59-incher at dusk within view of camp as Hinrichs steered the Warship back to the dock.
Chris Dickerson of Boone, Miss., landed this 59-inch sturgeon Friday evening, Aug. 1, 2025, on the Rainy River east of Baudette, Minn., within view of the Royal Dutchman Resort. Kevin Hinrichs, owner of the Royal Dutchman Resort, was fishing nearby in the 24-foot pontoon he calls the “Warship” when Dickerson tied into the fish. (Courtesy photo via Forum News Service)
Jeff Hinrichs and Alex Vadner, the 13-year-olds onboard, reeled in enough walleyes and saugers for a fish fry back at camp, along with several redhorse, a common sucker and a half-dozen “razor blades,” small sturgeon so-called for their sharp scutes, the bony plates that protect their skin.
With some coaching from the Dutchman, Vadner – reluctant at first – even held a sturgeon for a photo; the smile on his face was almost as big as the fish.
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We’d go through 5 dozen nightcrawlers, and if the boys’ enthusiasm was any indication – they didn’t want to go in – the future of fishing is in good hands.
Fun was had, memories were made.
So it went during a fine few hours on the Rainy River.
“You don’t lack for action (in the summer),” Hinrichs said. “And you never know. You’re going to catch a variety of fish. Definitely a little taste of the exotic that Lake of the Woods and Rainy River has to offer, with a multitude of fish that you can catch.”
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