Stalking Sturgeon

Hi Jessie, welcome aboard!” My buddy Phil’s perky Australian Shepherd bounded off the dock and onto the deck of my old Carver. “He’s ready to go,” Phil assured me. “I brought him cause he’s such good luck!” No argument there, the last time we took Jessie crabbing we netted easy limits. But Phil wasn’t fooling me; he loved ol’ Jessie and didn’t want to leave him home!

Today’s trip would be a lot greater challenge. We were headed off to the Columbia to try and nail our first sturgeon of the year. The day was bright and calm, and there had been pretty good fishing, but yesterday’s efforts had been frustrating.

My fishing pal Steve had joined me on a trip out in front of Astoria. We had been unable to get fresh bait, but figured that the frozen sardines Steve had brought to the dock might do the trick. We had put in nearly five hours of bait soaking and didn’t get as much as a nibble. To make matters worse, we had tagged along with a big charter boat that had just been nailing the fish! Sometimes they had three on at once. Like any self-respecting fishermen, we blamed the bait. Deep down inside, however, we weren’t so sure.

While Steve had to do chores this trip, Phil and I were going to test the “bad bait” theory. I had loaded up on anchovy and smelt and was determined to try and catch a few diamondbacks. As soon as Jessie had gotten settled on the deck, we chugged out of the marina and headed for the bridge.

The tide was still ebbing, and the buoys were leaning hard toward the ocean. It was too much current for us to anchor in the deeper water where all the action was the day before, so we put our hook down in a little shallower area, anchoring in about 25 feet of water. I put an anchovy on one rig and a fat smelt on the other. There were a couple of boats near us, so we could see any action that took place. Time to settle down and have a cup of coffee.

Call to Action
After only a couple of minutes of resting, we got our first action. Sometimes after you’ve put in hours with nothing, it’s a little hard to believe that something was chomping the hook! I grabbed my pole and waited to feel the fish’s weight—didn’t want to miss my first chance. Finally it quit nibbling, and pulled the tip hard. Wham! I set the hook and the fish gave a short run.

Jessie could tell that something was happening and stuck his nose under the railing. When the fish started splashing on the surface, the black and white pooch was really thrilled. The gray sturgeon was well under the 45-inch limit, so we had to pull the hook out and let him go. I was pleased. We got the skunk out of the boat, and the day was still young.
Shortly after the fish was released, the boats around us started moving out into the channel. The river was starting to flood, and they were going to deeper water, the same area where we’d seen all the catching the day before. We gave our hole about 15 more minutes and then headed for deeper water ourselves.

Out in the channel we found some interesting stuff on my fish finder. Down at the 60-foot bottom was a lot of “fishy” looking marks on the sonar. But it took a little effort to get secured. While the tide was flooding on the bottom, on the surface it still was heading downstream. We had to let out a lot of line to get the anchor secured. Once we got settled, we needed nearly a pound of weight to get down to the bottom.

Strong Current
Once again we didn’t have long to wait. Pretty soon Phil got a good pull and was into a nice fish. The strong current gave the fish more leverage and it made several good runs. As it approached the boat, we gave it a lot more attention. “It might be a keeper,” offered Phil, none too sure. It did have some size, but during the late season they have to be 45 inches, not the 42-inch requirement we were used to.

I got it netted and we broke out the measuring tape—just about 42, back it went. A lot of fun to catch and fight, but we still had nothing fit for the oven. The tide started to slacken and the boat was spinning in the afternoon wind. Things got a little lazy and we hardly noticed when Phil’s rod started bobbing in the wrong direction. “Hey Phil, I think that’s a fish!” I shouted.

Phil grabbed the bobbing blue Loomis, and gave it a jerk skyward. The reel started screaming as the line went out. “I think this one is better,” Phil chuckled. This was fun. After several minutes we got a look at the fish. A wide head surfaced near the boat and dived—out flew the line! Finally, Phil had it beat, and I got the net around it. This had to be big enough!

As it hit the deck, it started flailing. Jessie got all excited and came over to sniff! Whack, the fish nailed him with its tail. The startled dog slinked into a corner; this fish was too mean! After wrestling with it for a while, we finally got it taped, at 47 inches. The fish weighed close to thirty pounds and was fat as could be.

We kept fishing for another hour. I caught and released an undersized fish, and we headed back to the dock. After refilling the tank with some way-too-expensive gas, we put the boat in its berth and hauled the fish off to be cleaned. Jessie led the way, head high and prancing. After all, without his good luck we would have never caught the big one!