aye fsh
06-10-2001, 03:08 PM
Well, Just recovering from a fantatsic marathon day fishing with my friends for sturgeon in the estuary, Thought I'd share some details with my BB friends as well.
Took off from home at 3:45 and headed to the john day ramp just east of tongue point. Arrived right at 7 and was on the water and fishing by 7:45. I had two buddies with me in my boat and another friend was there with his and had a couple of guys with him. This was the first time any of them had been to the estuary for sturgeon, so I was really hoping to get some fish, as I had been talking very highly of this fishery.
Sat there for about 2 hours waiting for the tide to push the mudcats out so maybe a sturgeon might have a chance at our sand shrimp. Kept getting micro taps and tremble tip bites as our rods sat in the holders. We'd reel in and find our poor shrimps had been ravaged. Got tired of losing bait to what I thought was the sculpin scourge and decided to try to nail one and make him pay. Held my rod and very carefully waited for the next rat-a-tat-tat on my line. When it came I set up with a vengeance and.... Sturgeon on! It was a nice fat, feisty 30 incher. Cool. Put back out and held my rod again and within 5 or 10 minutes had another short boy to the boat. Things were looking up, actually some sturgeon around. Put my bait back out there and the next nibble-nibble I felt, with my rod in my hand, I set up and felt what I thought was a pretty good fish. I had had a couple other fish that I'd hit and come undone right away so I hit this one a couple more times to make sure the hook was set, which irritated the fish I think because it boiled and showed it's head and took off like a rocket. It was big, real big. After about 20 - 30 minutes or so and some nerve wracking runs (once around the anchor rope, thank you very much) and 4 or 5 attempts to get our hands on it at the boat we finally tire this beauty enough that it lets us hold it for a moment and get a tape on it. Right at 70 inches. One of my partners gets the hook free and tries to maneuver this awesome creature into position for a pic when it decides enough is enough and heads back for the bottom with it's tail thrashing back and forth on the surface. My partner got his morning shower and bath right there and then. What an experience!
We were using med. to med.-heavy salmon rods with braided line, usual slider with a 1 or 2 oz. weight and a 3' plastic coated wire leader with a 4/0 Gammi octopus hook. What fun to catch them on this tackle, especially a fish that's only a few inches shorter than myself! After the oversize incident everyone decided that holding your rod was probably a good thing and we sat there and caught fish all day long until about 9 when it started to get dark.
I think the salmon gear was helpful as my friend in the other boat did not do nearly as well using the tiger rod set up. He also had some inexperienced guys with him and this was pretty technical fishing as far as knowing when you were getting bit. Only had a couple of fish that really gave it the hearty tug-tug bite and hooked themselves, all the rest were bites that I would have bet anybody a hundred bucks were mudcats.
We had many other people come and go throughout the day and set up near us but saw only one other boat catch a keeper and only a handful of subs landed by the rest. I know how frustrating it can be to see somebody hammering fish right next door and not be able to figure out what is going on. What we were doing different was holding our rods and setting up as soon as we felt ANY thing fishy. I also think the small weight allowed the fish to get the bait and not feel us.
We ended up bringing home a 44", 48" and a 50", which would have been 52 or 53 if it hadn't had a worn down tail fin. Near as I can figure we landed around forty of the feistiest hard fighting sturgeon I've seen for a while, well, since last year fishing the same area anyways. I just love how these fish fight. Had one that ran under the boat and as I have my rod shoved straight down into the water it comes up on the other side and jumps next to the boat, beating on the side and splashing my snoozing buddy who had been drenched earlier. This same friend was using an older fiberglass ugly stick salmon pole and what a hoot that was! He had one of the bigger fish on and that poor rod was doubled over with the tip pointing the same direction as the handle. I was amazed at how some of the smaller fish thought they were actually a big fish and ran all over stripping line and bulldogging it under the boat, we were not being gentle with them either, had the drags set really tight.
I can't be very specific about where we were because I'm just not that sure. Basically we headed north/neast out of the john day channel and went out into the river until we found a spot that was about 10 -15 ft. deep near a deeper 30 - 40 foot area. We headed kind of towards that big sand island on the Wa. side and were just out in the middle of the river. My guess best would be that we were about 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile from tongue point, but my distance perception over water leaves a lot to be desired, so I'm not sure. I don't know if the location was as important as the fact we realized we were getting sturgeon bit and compensated by holdng our poles. I will mount another research expedition in the next couple of weeks and share my findings! Fishing in my experience rarely follows any kind of formula though, you just have to find 'em and give 'em what they want.
Notice in the picture the middle fish is substantially silver colored versus brown. Some one told me that was because the lighter ones are fresh out of the salt, whereas the brownish ones have been in the upper river. Any one know if this is the case? I also noticed the silver one's flesh was a different color (more transluscent than opaque). any theories?
Hope every one else had a good weekend, let's hear some fish tales!! images/icons/smile.gif images/icons/smile.gif
http://www.ifish.net/uploads/242817160.jpg
Ah - Ha! Got it, the image was just a little too big.
[ 06-10-2001: Message edited by: aye fsh ]
Took off from home at 3:45 and headed to the john day ramp just east of tongue point. Arrived right at 7 and was on the water and fishing by 7:45. I had two buddies with me in my boat and another friend was there with his and had a couple of guys with him. This was the first time any of them had been to the estuary for sturgeon, so I was really hoping to get some fish, as I had been talking very highly of this fishery.
Sat there for about 2 hours waiting for the tide to push the mudcats out so maybe a sturgeon might have a chance at our sand shrimp. Kept getting micro taps and tremble tip bites as our rods sat in the holders. We'd reel in and find our poor shrimps had been ravaged. Got tired of losing bait to what I thought was the sculpin scourge and decided to try to nail one and make him pay. Held my rod and very carefully waited for the next rat-a-tat-tat on my line. When it came I set up with a vengeance and.... Sturgeon on! It was a nice fat, feisty 30 incher. Cool. Put back out and held my rod again and within 5 or 10 minutes had another short boy to the boat. Things were looking up, actually some sturgeon around. Put my bait back out there and the next nibble-nibble I felt, with my rod in my hand, I set up and felt what I thought was a pretty good fish. I had had a couple other fish that I'd hit and come undone right away so I hit this one a couple more times to make sure the hook was set, which irritated the fish I think because it boiled and showed it's head and took off like a rocket. It was big, real big. After about 20 - 30 minutes or so and some nerve wracking runs (once around the anchor rope, thank you very much) and 4 or 5 attempts to get our hands on it at the boat we finally tire this beauty enough that it lets us hold it for a moment and get a tape on it. Right at 70 inches. One of my partners gets the hook free and tries to maneuver this awesome creature into position for a pic when it decides enough is enough and heads back for the bottom with it's tail thrashing back and forth on the surface. My partner got his morning shower and bath right there and then. What an experience!
We were using med. to med.-heavy salmon rods with braided line, usual slider with a 1 or 2 oz. weight and a 3' plastic coated wire leader with a 4/0 Gammi octopus hook. What fun to catch them on this tackle, especially a fish that's only a few inches shorter than myself! After the oversize incident everyone decided that holding your rod was probably a good thing and we sat there and caught fish all day long until about 9 when it started to get dark.
I think the salmon gear was helpful as my friend in the other boat did not do nearly as well using the tiger rod set up. He also had some inexperienced guys with him and this was pretty technical fishing as far as knowing when you were getting bit. Only had a couple of fish that really gave it the hearty tug-tug bite and hooked themselves, all the rest were bites that I would have bet anybody a hundred bucks were mudcats.
We had many other people come and go throughout the day and set up near us but saw only one other boat catch a keeper and only a handful of subs landed by the rest. I know how frustrating it can be to see somebody hammering fish right next door and not be able to figure out what is going on. What we were doing different was holding our rods and setting up as soon as we felt ANY thing fishy. I also think the small weight allowed the fish to get the bait and not feel us.
We ended up bringing home a 44", 48" and a 50", which would have been 52 or 53 if it hadn't had a worn down tail fin. Near as I can figure we landed around forty of the feistiest hard fighting sturgeon I've seen for a while, well, since last year fishing the same area anyways. I just love how these fish fight. Had one that ran under the boat and as I have my rod shoved straight down into the water it comes up on the other side and jumps next to the boat, beating on the side and splashing my snoozing buddy who had been drenched earlier. This same friend was using an older fiberglass ugly stick salmon pole and what a hoot that was! He had one of the bigger fish on and that poor rod was doubled over with the tip pointing the same direction as the handle. I was amazed at how some of the smaller fish thought they were actually a big fish and ran all over stripping line and bulldogging it under the boat, we were not being gentle with them either, had the drags set really tight.
I can't be very specific about where we were because I'm just not that sure. Basically we headed north/neast out of the john day channel and went out into the river until we found a spot that was about 10 -15 ft. deep near a deeper 30 - 40 foot area. We headed kind of towards that big sand island on the Wa. side and were just out in the middle of the river. My guess best would be that we were about 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile from tongue point, but my distance perception over water leaves a lot to be desired, so I'm not sure. I don't know if the location was as important as the fact we realized we were getting sturgeon bit and compensated by holdng our poles. I will mount another research expedition in the next couple of weeks and share my findings! Fishing in my experience rarely follows any kind of formula though, you just have to find 'em and give 'em what they want.
Notice in the picture the middle fish is substantially silver colored versus brown. Some one told me that was because the lighter ones are fresh out of the salt, whereas the brownish ones have been in the upper river. Any one know if this is the case? I also noticed the silver one's flesh was a different color (more transluscent than opaque). any theories?
Hope every one else had a good weekend, let's hear some fish tales!! images/icons/smile.gif images/icons/smile.gif
http://www.ifish.net/uploads/242817160.jpg
Ah - Ha! Got it, the image was just a little too big.
[ 06-10-2001: Message edited by: aye fsh ]