Small panfish for sturgeon bait?

[paulages]

I've been catching the crap out of small perch, bass, and bluegill in the Willy after work... is there any reason I couldn't stick these guys in the freezer and use them for sturgeon bait come Saturday? Most are in the 6-10" range.

 

[GungasUncle]

No reason at all. They make excellent bait for any of the flesh eaters in teh river. Good luck!

 

[paulages]

Awesome! Looks like I'll be stocking the freezer...

 

[paulages]

Got some bait for Saturday in about 30 minutes of fishing off the dock at Cathedral park in St. Johns. Pikeminnow, a bluegill, two sculpin, and several perch. Let's hope the sturgeon like them!

 

[paulages]

Not sure if this is a condemnation of my attempt to use this bait, but I tried a perch alone and with some smelly jelly type stuff for a while, whole the boat next to us pulled in shaker after shaker. Ok, that's an exxageration, but they pulled in several and we pulled in none, with three different baits: smelt, perch, and shrimp.

Eventually, I switched to a herring that had been thawed and refrozen several times and brought in a keeper... my first! It put up a hell of a fight, nothing like shakers I've caught. Felt great!

 

[Raincatcher]

Not sure if this is a condemnation of my attempt to use this bait, but I tried a perch alone and with some smelly jelly type stuff for a while, whole the boat next to us pulled in shaker after shaker. Ok, that's an exxageration, but they pulled in several and we pulled in none, with three different baits: smelt, perch, and shrimp.

Eventually, I switched to a herring that had been thawed and refrozen several times and brought in a keeper... my first! It put up a hell of a fight, nothing like shakers I've caught. Felt great!

Congrats on your first keeper!! I didn't know sturgeon were so picky,but it sounds like herring might be the go to bait when you can't tempt them with a full menu...

 

[GungasUncle]

Its possible the other boat was just positioned right above a good holding area, while your boat, a little further away, was on the edge, or just out of smell of the fish. It could be coinkidink, I wouldn't swear of pannies as bait just yet.

If you do decide that they're not suitable sturgeon bait - they do make excellent crab bait.

 

[paulages]

Maybe they would have worked eventually... I had the herring in the freezer from springer season, so it was just as easy to use them. I just grilled a bit up... first time eating sturgeon. mmmmmmm.

39" on the money. I'd thought for sure it was the upper side of legal, the way it fought...