Sturgeon on the Columbia (4/2)

LabMan · 04-03-2005, 10:09 AM

Thanks to all who welcomed me to ifish last week. I took my new 16' Hewescraft with 75 hp Honda on the Columbia yesterday, 4/2, fishing for sturgeon. Launched at Shilapoo (sp?) for the first time and definitely looked like a rookie. Went to the Oregon side of the river, about 75 yards off the Sauvie, about 1/4 mile upriver. The bite was pretty consistent, but was definitely better on the change of tide (remember, I am still learning this stuff). We fished smelt bought from Fisherman's and tried some pickled smelt as well. Seemed like the pickled were much better than the others. We had about 25 bites, hooked around 10, but no keepers (yup, I am a rookie). The largest was 38 inches, with most being between 28 and 34. For the first time out on the boat, it was great. The weather was good, I was still feeling out the boat so was trying to stay away from any of you on the Washington side. One thing to note, we did see a sea lion, looked to be very large, on the Oregon side of the river, about 40 yards down stream of us.

fishboys · 04-03-2005, 10:16 AM

good job

HammondSeaRanger · 04-03-2005, 11:00 AM

thanks for the report !!

Cliff · 04-03-2005, 11:35 AM

10 shakers sounds like fun to me!

Cliff

Beefcake · 04-03-2005, 11:37 AM

Sounds like a good day. The next step is to convert more bites to fish landed (hookset timing is the most fun part of sturgeon fishing). See if you can get your personal bite-to-fight ratio up to 75-80% or better. However, some days (or times of year), they just don't bite hard and I still have days under 50%.

It makes sense with these water conditions that the pickled would have more scent to attract more fish, but you can often accomplish the same success with straight smelt (or herring) by stabbing them a couple of times and squishing them so they are releasing as much of a scent trail as possible.