Sizing Up Sturgeon


We’d sure picked a pretty day to spend some time on the Columbia. Off the stern stood Mt. St. Helens, kicking out a small cloud of steam. We’d joined a small group of boats fishing near Tongue Pt. It was still early in the day, the water was flat as glass, and the afternoon winds were still hours away.

Naturally, fishing was slow. This sturgeon season had been challenging to say the least. Sure, I’d had millions of reports to the contrary from my buddies, especially the charter crew. But it obviously hadn’t been good for everybody. The season had been extended by a month since the quotas hadn’t been caught, and we certainly hadn’t caught our share! In some 15 trips we’d only boated about half a dozen keepers, and I’d taken out a lot of folks.

On this slow day, my buddies Milford and Jim had joined me. We were keeping each other awake with the usual insults and complaints when Milford’s ancient rod gave a bounce. As soon as he picked it up, action ceased. Back it went into the rod holder amid lots of comments about his slow reflexes and generally poor fishing skills. A couple of minutes passed and the rod bounced a couple of more times.

“I’m going to hold on to it this time!” Milford stated without much conviction. We freshened up the coffee and were watching the terns dive for baitfish when he stood up and walked to the stern. He lowered his rod tip and slammed it upward. “You missed,” Jim and I hooted as we always do when our buddy takes his big swing. Our smiles changed to looks of awe as the huge fish went skyward, about a hundred yards downstream.

Something Big
“That fish might be too big,” mumbled Jim under his breath. No doubt about it, this was something special. Two problems I usually manage to avoid are catching the limit and landing oversize fish. With a 60-inch maximum on sturgeon, this might be real close. The line screamed out of Milford’s reel; it had a lot less line than when he first set the hook, and hopefully it would be enough to last until the great fish tired. Finally the first run ended and my buddy was able to regain a good deal of line. Most of the mono was back on the spool as the fish powered downriver with a vengeance. Fortunately, it missed the anchor rope and headed off starboard. It settled under the boat and we peered into the murky waters anxiously as it slowly rose. Up came the red sinker slider, the fish would soon follow.

It was big, really big, but was it too big? It wasn’t one of those seven- or eight-foot monsters with mouths that could swallow a basketball, but it was sure bigger than the 50-inchers we had caught in the past. If it was obviously oversized, we would have released it at the side of the boat. But we really weren’t sure. Sturgeon are a tough fish and can easily survive a little handling, but you want to avoid hurting any fish you might have to release. However, there was no way we could measure this beauty without bringing it on board.

Milford guided it to the boat. I was able to dip it up pretty easily, and we hoisted it onto the deck. Now things got tricky. The big fish did not have any interest in being measured and slammed us all over the deck. To make matters worse, one of the other rods had a strike, and Jim was hanging on as his line roared off the reel!

Sizing It Up
I grabbed a measuring tape and handed one end to Milford. “Put it on its tail,” I shouted. “I’ll measure its nose.” I put a half nelson on the big fish’s snout and waited for Milford to give me a read on his end. “I think we’re OK,” he mumbled. “It says 57 inches.” I looked back at him. The fish was bent in a C shape! “I don’t think we can get away with that; we have to measure him laying straight!” I gasped for air, and waited till the fish bounced into a more linear configuration. I looked at my end—the measure was well over 60 inches, pretty close to 70.

“We better get it over buddy; it’s way too big,” I remarked in surrender. Milford was not overjoyed to hear that, but I think he had pretty well resolved himself to his fate. We took a quick picture and slid the big critter back into the river. Time to go out and breed—it wouldn’t be anyone’s dinner.

We cleaned up the deck and turned our attention to Jim—maybe this would be a big fish we could keep. As it turned out, it wasn’t anything special; the drag was set too light, giving the 40-inch fish way too much credit. We released it beside the boat and started bemoaning our fate. We finally caught a good fish, our biggest ever for my boat, and had nothing to show for it!

Another Bite
After another hour of commiserating, I noticed a little tug on my rod. I felt the line, but no abnormal activity seemed to be going on. A couple of minutes later it bounced again. Could this be Milford’s fish back? I took my rod out of the holder and waited. It took a few more minutes but something was messing with my smelt. The line grew taut and I slammed it home. Off our stern the critter went skyward, exploding as it hit the water. “That might be too big too,” speculated Jim in disbelief!

The fight was terrific, a lot of long runs, up and downstream. Unfortunately, this lively fish had managed to tangle both of the other lines. Since we were fishing into a big flood tide, all of the rigs had one-pound sinkers and a lot of weight was around the fish. It didn’t cause us big trouble until we tried to put a net on it.

Like Milford’s fish, this one was big, maybe too big. I finally got it close to the boat and tried to bring it to the side. Jim held the net but was having big trouble getting the fish in. The two tangled lines had gotten themselves under the fish. Unless the fish bent, it wouldn’t fit in the net and the lines were keeping it straight.

As usual I yelled and screamed at the netter, but Jim was frustrated. He couldn’t get any slack in the fish and something was bound to give. Finally, I put my rod in the holder, helped him lift the fish high enough to get into the net and finally we wrestled the whole mess of lines, fish and sinkers into the boat.

Measuring Up
We were all shot. It took a while to get the lines and weights loose, but our biggest problem was getting the fish measured. This one was close, really close. One problem with big sturgeon is that they are not flat. The fish are round and the tail may lay flat, but the nose is off the ground. You have to hold the tape a little above the fish about where you figure it should be. It’s usually not a problem, but we couldn’t get it to measure the same twice. Our biggest was 61 inches, our smallest 59.

In all we measured it twelve times, as near as we could tell it was exactly 60 inches, the top limit! I have to admit, I was a little goosey about bringing in a fish so close, but my buddies said they’d stand by me if I got hauled off to jail!

When I got home, I took the fish out into the yard with a measuring tape for a final measure. It was exactly the size of the 60-inch tape! I took it over to the local cannery that custom cans the fish you bring them. We’ll make labels with pictures of the big fish to send to relatives for a Christmas treat. The fish turned out to weigh 52 pounds and we got 26 cans of smoked sturgeon. One thing is for sure; I’ll never get to keep a bigger one!

Bob Ellsberg’s column, Fishin’, appears monthly in RV Life and rvlife.com.