Sturgeon Report – 4/14 & 4/15 2011

Mike W, Mike’s neighbor – Mike and myself ran up for the first of two trips for the 2011 Sturgeon season. Arrived late Wed night with the plan to fish Thurs-Sunday noon. Well, if you followed the weather, our trip got cut short. Woke up Saturday to two inches of snow. With predictions of a couple more and winds picking up to 30mph out of the north! Yuk.

Thursday was the last day of walleye season and we wanted to put a few eaters in the boat. Mike scoped out a likely area with a nice current break. In the first 10 minutes both Mike and I were spooled by two sturgeon on our walleye gear. So we canned that idea and made the switch over to our sturgeon rods. That walleye spot put out 20 fish Thursday morning with a few over the 50 inch mark.

Mike’s 63 incher was in spot #2 on Thursday. We were set up in some stiff current pushing well into the 4mph range. What a battle to get the beast into the boat. That fish filled the net and required both net guys to rastle that thing into the boat! I’ll bet that was pretty funny to watch!

Even though the water conditions were terrible, the fish were going pretty good. We believe the bluebird skies on Thursday were key to that trips bite. Friday we were greeted with heavy cloud cover, dropping baramoter and stiff winds. Mix in the weekend boat traffic and it was a totally different story. We ran all over looking for current breaks with some kind of fishable water. But after running-gunning most of the day, we joinded the crowd on 4-mile bay and after a few moves, we got pretty close to where we were getting bit Thursday. Only managed one fish Friday. Not even sure if it was a bite or accidental snag. I’m going with a bite and gator roll hook out then belly snag story…. Either way, Friday was tuff!

As I mentioned, the snow chased us out of there Saturday AM. Well, we all agreed we had no problem sitting in the snow all day if the fish were going. But no sense getting beat up. Really needed that sun out to get the bite going!

Made it home after a slick ride back to town. Snow covered roads down to about Aitken. What a mess!

Keeping an eye on the weather now. Can’t wait for the next run up to tangle with these bruts. The bite can only get better from here on out! I’ll bet conditions will be set up perfect for the IDO Sturgeon Excursion – can’t wait!

Click here for video>>>> Sturgeon Trip #1

-J.

Cool video.
And Mike, it looks like those new rods held up just fine.

Here is a clip of that first hook up and spooling. My St Croix with 8# mono was no match.

JJ Gets Spooled !!

p.s. That shot was on 4/14/2011 – the last day of the walleye season.

-J.

Thanks for sharing Jon. Now I am getting amped up to get up there

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Cool video.

And Mike, it looks like those new rods held up just fine.

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The rods did hold up well but think I may still be looking for a sturgeon rod. Mike and I where trying out some new Shimano Volteaus rods. (VTS 6’6″ and 7″ MH) Nice soft tips with real good back bone for $30 to $40 a piece. These rods had plenty of strength to get the big gals in and I gave it a good work out on that 63″er.

What didnt seem to match up well on these rods for sturgeon fishing was the handles. There was not enough handle in front of the reel for when those big fish go on a long run or dive back to the bottom and you want to place both hands up there and just hold on. There was also not a long enough butt on them for tucking under you arm pit or waist while trying to get extra leverage on these fish. Guess I cant knock the rod for that because these where made for bass fishing and not Sturgeon. Wondering if I might not be able to modify these a bit to make them more sturgeon friendly.

Here are some of the fish lengths we recorded for our trip.

Jon Jordan.

42″

47″

48″

48″

55″

Mike B.

54″

30″

46″

25″

55″

Mike W.

48″

39″ Tagged 86.157

41″

24″

38″ Tagged 85.801

51″

63″

Im ready for round two Jon.

Here is what the river has been doing the last few days. This should be good news for those that are heading up. About a week to 10 days ago it was rising just about as fast and I think we hit just about the high water of it.

River Forecast

Thanks for the post and video…

Can’t wait to get back up there.

Rudy

River going down, fish are biting…whoa! just might be a trip the wife has fun on.

Thanks for posting.

Al

Nice fish Mike.

Our largest was 59×25 and it was caught by my friends girlfriend and it was her first.

I have been trying to top 64 inches for 2 years and it now looks like it will take another to do so at least.

We were going to fish today but we had had enough of the wind and snow and packed it all up and left.

Still a great trip.