Another monster sturgeon from up North

Hey all,

I have not posted here since I caught a monster sturgeon last winter. I figured you all were ready for another taste of the monsters that live up here in Oregon.

This is my third weekend in a row with an oversized out of my kayak, but this one dwarfed the previous fish. She was around 7 or 8’ long. I hooked up around 2:20PM. It was a very solid bite, no nibbling around, just vacuumed up my anchovy and started to swim away. From when I tightened the circle hook into place it was clear that this was a big fish. She immediately took off on a pretty blistering run and the battle was on. I fought this fish as hard as I could, more than once I was amazed I did not snap my rod given how hard I was leaning on it. You got to love those tiger stiks! My strategy to land the fish as quickly as possible was to get right over top of her each time she stopped running and try and pull her up. She would respond by taking off on another run. This seemed futile at first, but I think it really helped to land her out quickly. She pulled me back and forth across the river in a generally downstream direction past parks and docks, the fight lasted 35 minutes and I ended up a mile downstream from where I started. As she was pulling me around quite a few boats stopped to see what was going on. At first one boat stopped to watch, then another, then a few kayakers. By the end there was a small armada watching the fight, it was really cool. I thought I had her beat once. I got her to the surface, but she just soaked me with a big splash as she dove all the way back down to the bottom. Once I finally got her whipped, we got a few pics just of her head. Folks wanted to know if I was going to drag her to the shallows to measure her and get some better pics, but I decided it was better to get a just get a few quick pics and then let her go. I was tired, she was tired. So instead I got some help from the guy in the green kayak. While I held her he took my pliers and twisted the hook out. It felt great to watch her slowly swam away. I have to say at that point I am glad I have a pedal kayak, because I am not sure I had the upper body strength left to make it the mile upstream back to my anchor.





When I got back to my buoy I decided that I felt recovered enough to fish a bit more. Man, I am glad I did. The bite turned insane. I was hooking up on every drop within a count of 50 (If I get to 500 I move the bait). This last pic is a fat 45” fish that I decided to end the day on. Overall on the day I caught 13 sturgeon, 9 shakers, 3 keeper sized and the one beast.

Now that's a report!  One helluva fish, great catch!

Damn!

Meh. Not bad. 

This sure doesn't sound like sturgeon fishing down here! Way to go man, sounds like an awesome day.

Wow, I took a pick of the head of the last one I caught, I figured it was right at the upper slot for us which is 66".  In comparison,,,,,,,,,THAT'S a big head you got there, Congrats on the battle and the classy release.

I like sturgeon fishing.

NICE!! 


Kiel

Thanks for the kind words. I really appreciate the enthusiasm. I am not sure what sturgeon fishing is like down your way, but what happened to me does not happen very often up this way. I was very fortunate to get to meet that fish. The really funny thing is that shad are running right now and they are like candy to the oversized. I was incredibly lucky to have that big lady want to have an tiny anchovy appetizer. In the words of Satchel Paige, It's better to be lucky than good on any given day".

Wow! 13 sturgeon in one day is something else bro.  Some of us here would take a few years just to catch one. Thanks for sharing bro.

Jedmo

Size wise, it's not that large but if I were ever to catch a sturgeon of any size, it would be a monster size to me.

Wow! 13 sturgeon in one day is something else bro.  Some of us here would take a few years just to catch one. Thanks for sharing bro.

Jedmo

Wow, I did not realize that fishery up here was so different the fishery down South. The Willamette (which is C&R for pretty much the whole year) has a lot of sturgeon. I sometimes read posts from regular boat guys who put 40 or 50 fish in the boat over the course of a day(these reports are not common, but do not raise that much of a fuss).  The day I had was a good one (mostly because of the monster), but on a normal day I would expect to catch 5 to 10 sturgeon for 8 hours of effort. There are just a lot of fish up here. I think that the biomass of sturgeon in the river is almost unbelievable.

I think that in the bays around here the pickings are a lot slimmer. There are fish, but they are a lot harder to find and catch on a consistent basis. Personally, I have not tried it , just read about it. I like to stick with the easier fishing

Wow!!

Wow!!!!

I've seen video of folks pulling in fish that size out of the Columbia, but didn't know the Willamette held monsters as well.

Oh, and the guys on the Columbia were using whole Shad as bait.

One of these days...

You call that a monster.thats a baby for up there.jk congrats on the huge dino.

Where on the Willamette? Near the Columbia or ? Do they catch them regularly as far up as Corvallis?
Go Beavs!