Great sturgeon fishin

bass
bass
I have been fishing the past two weekends for sturgeon around the Swan Island area and it has been really awesome fishing. The week before last it was rainy and windy. The weather was tough but the fishing was great. Ended up with 19 sturgeon.] that day: 13 shakers, 5 keepers and one oversize 5.5-6'. Marked reasonable number of fish in parts of harbor. Fished for 1.5 hours but only two good sized shakers, several missed bites and a few line bumps.

Moved out around the mouth and caught 9 shakers and one keeper in about 3 hours. Not bad but not great. I decided to look for bigger fish downstream. Spent a couple of hours trying spots with only 2 more shakers.

Finally was heading back upstream and marked some fish in some shallower (30') water. Tide was incoming with the best current of the day and the bite was awesome. 5 keepers and the oversized in a couple of hours. At first I was not anchoring despite the current and the wind, just holding my position with my paddle, but it was really working. After a bio break I decided to anchor up on the spot I had been fishing.

First fish races towards me and wraps around my anchor. After some pretty fancy holding my rod with my leg while pulling my anchor I was able to finally land a big keeper. After that I pulled anchor and went back to free styling and caught the oversized and my last keeper. The bite was so good. No more than 30 seconds to get a bite. I did not get a picture of the oversized since she was clearly camera shy and uncomfortable about her weight :)

I was thinking it would never end when the wind suddenly became insanely fierce. I could not hold position and was bobbing up and down a couple of feet. Also turns out that my "dry top" is now a wet top. I was soaked and shivering most of the day. I will need to get a new one soon. With all that wind and me shivering so badly I could not hold the rod still I decided to just call it a day. Here is one of the many keepers.

PA250701%20Small_zpsl39rjhbb.jpg

This past Sunday (the 1st) I went back to Swan Island and met up with minnowmagnet (Brian). We had an even better day than the previous Sunday. First, the forecast of rain and wind was greatly exaggerated. More sunshine than rain. We figured that the forecast had scared everyone else off and we laughed about it all day long. We did not find out until later that there was a sewage overflow in Portland and that you were supposed to avoid contact with the water. Always better to not know :)

I am not sure how many Brian caught but I caught 30 sturgeon and he was doing similarly well. The amazing thing was the extremely high number of keepers including multiple 50" fish. I think that we were catching at least 50% keeper sized fish. I caught one that was at the very upper end, and inch either way of being oversized, but Brian took big fish honors with a feisty 5.5' beast. The fishing was just so insanely good I can't even begin to describe how fantastic it was to be on the water.

It was like all the stars aligned. The fish were hungry and fighting like demons. I had two fish jump, one of them jumped twice and even tail walked a bit the other came soaring out of the water in a high arcing leap. Brian hooked a second oversized that jumped twice before snapping his dacron leader. A short while later I hooked a huge fish that snapped my main line. Just a wonderful and crazy day.

Here is Brian with a nice keeper sized fish:

PB010708%20Small_zps0dutcsqf.jpg

Note how "terrible" the weather was!

My rod spent most of the day looking like this as one nice sized fish after another dragged me around:

PB010709%20Small_zpsfmtll5hq.jpg

I lost count of how many doubles we had. There were periods where it almost seemed weird when only one of us was hooked up. Just a little more fish porn:

PB010705%20Small_zpsn0qnjbot.jpg

PB010714%20Small_zpsfhyqphms.jpg

Say aw :)

PB010715%20Small_zpsnzpd6cvm.jpg

One of the most fortuitous things for me was that my Shimano Cardiff (on a x-Hvy Okuma salmon rod) was squealing like a pig after having the pouring rain wash all the lube out of it the previous weekend. I usually use that rod when the current is light like it was on Sunday. However, I since the reel sounded awful I switched over to my real sturgeon rod (Lamigals BFC with Daiwa Saltist). I am sure glad that I did. I am not sure I would have survived that many big fish with the lighter combo.

I still can't stop smiling when I think back to what an amazing day we had. Glad I did not hear the report about the sewage spill in advance, ignorance sometimes truly is bliss.
 
B
Berg03
nice job BASS! i really need to get me a yak for that. the toon get carried away in the wind way to easy. One of these days it will happen! Gotta love catching sturgeon almost the size of the boat! Great job bud!
 
B
BaldTexan
I love those kind of days. Everyone stays home and the fishing is epic. Floating on a little poo water apparently didn't hurt ya...but I'd be scrubbing my boat with Clorox! Yak
 
Admin
Admin
Bass, great report, as usual! And as usual I can't feature it for luck of a picture with you & your catch. Damn it!)
 
rogerdodger
rogerdodger
Anatoliy said:
Bass, great report, as usual! And as usual I can't feature it for luck of a picture with you & your catch. Damn it!)

sturgeon rules are very strict, very difficult to get more of a picture than what Bass gets...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
B
BaldTexan
It's especially tough to get a shot of an oversize when your fishing solo. I can't get those suckers to pose at all!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
rogerdodger
rogerdodger
BaldTexan said:
It's especially tough to get a shot of an oversize when your fishing solo. I can't get those suckers to pose at all!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

you just need to jump in the water with them and get an underwater picture with your GoPro!

• All sturgeon must be immediately released unharmed into the water.
• Sturgeon over 54 inches (oversize) in fork length cannot be removed totally or in part from the water.
 
Admin
Admin
rogerdodger said:
sturgeon rules are very strict, very difficult to get more of a picture than what Bass gets...

I know. I just described my feelings.)
 
bass
bass
Berg03 said:
nice job BASS! i really need to get me a yak for that. the toon get carried away in the wind way to easy. One of these days it will happen! Gotta love catching sturgeon almost the size of the boat! Great job bud!

Thanks Brad. When the wind is calm you could easily fish Swan Island from your toon. You just need to pick the right day. Of course, every day is the right day when you have a kayak :)
 
bass
bass
BaldTexan said:
I love those kind of days. Everyone stays home and the fishing is epic. Floating on a little poo water apparently didn't hurt ya...but I'd be scrubbing my boat with Clorox! Yak

The funny thing is that Brian and I were constantly rinsing our hands off in the water all day. Maybe I know a new secret sturgeon scent :)
 
bass
bass
Anatoliy said:
Bass, great report, as usual! And as usual I can't feature it for luck of a picture with you & your catch. Damn it!)


Sorry, I just never get a picture of myself. I have tried getting the sturgeon to take a picture of me but they always get their fin over the lens. Stupid sturgeon :)
 
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bass
bass
rogerdodger said:
you just need to jump in the water with them and get an underwater picture with your GoPro!

• All sturgeon must be immediately released unharmed into the water.
• Sturgeon over 54 inches (oversize) in fork length cannot be removed totally or in part from the water.


One of these days I want to bring the kids' gopro with me and try and make a Sammy style video.
 
C
cdumitru78
Nice job, thats a solid day of fishing! Sounds like once the incoming started flowing the bite really came on good.
 
bass
bass
The bite was actually good all day long, but it was outgoing most of the day (high was around 9am and low was around 4:45pm). However, there is very little current in the river around Swan Island. Here is a plot of the stream velocity in Portland (which is faster than at Swan Island since the river widens there):

stream%20velocity_zpscsnew94w.jpg

One interesting point to note is that when the water is low that the incoming current is stronger than the outgoing, but it is very short lived. Now that the river is coming up a bit the outgoing is gaining a little velocity and the incoming is losing a lot. As an example, on the 30th you can see that the current flowed about twice as strong in the incoming as compared to the outgoing. On Sunday (the 1st) the outgoing was stronger than the incoming but we were fishing mostly around the mouth of Swan Island and there was zero current in that area.
 
jamisonace
jamisonace
Excellent. I'll have to get back up there soon. I haven't back since that killer day we had in January thanks to your advice.
 
M
minnowmagnet
Great post John! I had a blast out there too. Those were for sure some scrappy sturgeon on Sunday and I have to admit that I'm already looking forward to doing it again. I must say that I feel a stronger connection to everyone in the Portland area now that I have spent a day dipping my hands in their poo.
I will add that you are one of the most determined and tireless people that I have ever fished with, catching or not.
 
bass
bass
minnowmagnet said:
Great post John! I had a blast out there too. Those were for sure some scrappy sturgeon on Sunday and I have to admit that I'm already looking forward to doing it again. I must say that I feel a stronger connection to everyone in the Portland area now that I have spent a day dipping my hands in their poo.
I will add that you are one of the most determined and tireless people that I have ever fished with, catching or not.

Right back at you Brian. I love fishing with you because you never let boat traffic, rain, snow, wind or even human waste slow you down! Only thing that sends us home is an empty bait bag :)
 

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