First sturgeon at OAP 1/24

I went fishing at OAP with my dad. It was the first time in the bay for us. The weather was pretty cloudy with almost no rain. We launched at 8:00 and started to fish in the shallower water off the airport. We fished there for about one hour and decided to fish the deeper water. We anchored up in 16 ft. off the airport. My first fish was a big bullhead that I released. I had two other bites where some fish stole my bait. 30 minutes later, I got a nice pump and set the hook and sturgeon on. The fish started peeling line out fast so I pulled anchor. I went for a nice ride. It took me about 10 minutes before I actually saw the fish and about 20 minutes to land the fish. The sturgeon was a fat 50 incher and I was using ghost shrimp for bait. I released the sturgeon after we measured it. It was the first sturgeon that I ever caught. I also noticed that it had some parasites on it's face and body. We didn't get any more bites after that. We left at 2:00.

Thanks for the report  seabass72, welcome to the board. What do you paddle? And were the hell are the pics?

Welcome to the board. Great first post too. Congrats on the dino. What kind of parasites were on your fish??? I don't think I've ever seen any parasites on any dino that I caught before.

Freddie

I have a blue hobie quest and the only pics i have are on a cell phone. I try to upload them later.

Dude, I have lived in Petaluma since 1976. Who is you Dad? I might know him. I have been working in town since 76' also. My name is Craig Davis and I work at Lees Body Shop on the boulevard out by Cinnabar theatre. Welcome to the NCKA.

Nice meeting you and your dad today seabass72. Congrats on the sturgeon again
and welcome to the board. Looking forward to many more of your reports and
pictures.

Jedmo

Hey Seabass72, 

I saw you guys this morning as well, sweet yaks by the way.  Looked a lot faster than my caper.  WTG on the sturgeon. 

-SF

Nice work. Happy to hear of the release. I've been biting my lip when I hear of all the kept fish. I know, I know its not that big of a deal. But these are 50+ year old fish that reproduce at a snails pace. The past two weeks has put a decade long dent in the species.

OK off my soapbox. Sorry guys

OK off my soapbox. Sorry guys

Don't be, Eric - I think we're all in support of people making an informed decision about when to catch and keep and when to release, and yak-fishermen have been shown to be more conscientious than most others.  I'm proud of us as a group for showing the conscience, and talking about it and educating each other.  Encouraging sound practices is a huge part of this community.  I don't know of a significant number of members here who push the "limit mentality" or who give others shit for NOT killing something or taking a limit, like some other groups of fishermen will actually do (based on personal experience).

Great first report, seabass72, and BRAVO for releasing the fish.  I'll look forward to those cell phone pics and more reports from you, young man.   

WTG seabass72, congrats on the sturgeon.  Welcome and thanks for the report!

Congrats Seabass72.  Nice work on the release too.

I commonly have parasites on the fish... little critters latching on to the body.  Same as you see on bay halibut.

EK

sturgeon pics:

nice fish sb72, in your pics is that a tag on the fish on its right flank? welcome to the board and hope you get many more fish, cameron

Very nice fish! Nice yak, too.

Y'all have inflenced me to practice catch N release.

That black thing in both pics is the swivel from my leader.