Locating sturgeon

I know the fish can be pretty easy to locate at LOW this time of year but was wondering if there are any key types of structure you guys look for to find better numbers of them.

I’ll tell you what, Mike. I have fished them on the Croix and Rainy, and they are not tough to find. On the Croix, find schools of shad and deep water and you’ll find sturgeon. Rainy doesn’t have schools of shad, so we took that out of the equation. Basically, we tooled around and found deeper spots. Where most of the river was 13 feet and we found 18 feet, we fished there. If the majority was 16 feet and we found 20, we fished there. We caught fish in nearly every spot like that. What seemed to work best was to locate the “main channel” of the river that is deeper than the rest. They seem to travel along there. And don’t be afraid to try near shore. One of our best spots was tight to shore, but still the deepest area.

We only fished from the landing near wigwam to the lake last year. Looked like you guys spent some time on the river this year. Think its worth will for us to head over by clemetsons to fish?

I was up this year and i not sure of thier exact location, but some fellas caught mighty good numbers of mighty good fish over towards clemetsons

Just like wiggum said, find the deepest cut, anchor down, chuck some worms out there, and gettin ready for some fun!

We caught fish West of Baudette to East of Clementsen. They’re all over.

Mike,
Water temp is also a factor I think in targeting the fish. We were fishing in water close to 47F-50Fin the river between Baudette and clemenson. But on the bay and close to the lake the temps were not as high and the fish didnt seem to be biting as readily as they were in the warmer temps.
something to think about……………..

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Mike,
Water temp is also a factor I think in targeting the fish. We were fishing in water close to 47F-50Fin the river between Baudette and clemenson. But on the bay and close to the lake the temps were not as high and the fish didnt seem to be biting as readily as they were in the warmer temps.
something to think about……………..

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Larry, did you fish Sunday? It sounds like people did well in the bay on Sunday.

Ryan, I was thinking about that last spot we fished Saturday and was thinking that spot was extra special not only because of the nice deep water there but that the channel swung so close to shore with the transition from rocky to muddy bottom may have had everything the sturgeon needed to fatten up before spawn time. Just a thought.

Not only am I having fun catching them but just learning more about them every time Im out there.

We fished sunday in the bay and boated close to 25 fish in bout 2 – 2 1/2 hours.. majority were smaller though in the low to mid 30’s, with 5 or so in the 40’s, biggest bein 45”.

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Mike,
Water temp is also a factor I think in targeting the fish. We were fishing in water close to 47F-50Fin the river between Baudette and clemenson. But on the bay and close to the lake the temps were not as high and the fish didnt seem to be biting as readily as they were in the warmer temps.
something to think about……………..

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Larry, did you fish Sunday? It sounds like people did well in the bay on Sunday.

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Nope….
My point was not the location but the temps. I’m willing to guess that the temps had a chance to rise after 24-48 hours after the ice opened up.
I would be curious to hear what the temps were on Sun.
If they were low…. like they were on the day prior right after ice out…. then scratch my theory.

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Ryan, I was thinking about that last spot we fished Saturday and was thinking that spot was extra special not only because of the nice deep water there but that the channel swung so close to shore with the transition from rocky to muddy bottom may have had everything the sturgeon needed to fatten up before spawn time. Just a thought.

Not only am I having fun catching them but just learning more about them every time Im out there.

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Marc,
you make an interesting observation. Shamu and I boated our 60inch and 58inch the day prior to seeing you guys in your HOT SPOT. Coincedentally the reason we started fishing there was that it had a really nice wind break and we were experimenting with some different anchoring techs. After fishing it for a bit we started to see that we had found an area that you described. We also didnt want to proceed any closer to the Fleet that was right off Clemenson on the Rapid river…… Lots and Lots of boats….
I’ll tell you what bummed me out though…. was a huge looked to be at least 60incher dead on shore A bald eagle attracted our attention to it and the birds were picking it apart. (right in that area, Its back was broken and it was folded in half…………… strange.

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I’m willing to guess that the temps had a chance to rise after 24-48 hours after the ice opened up.
I would be curious to hear what the temps were on Sun.
If they were low…. like they were on the day prior right after ice out…. then scratch my theory.

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Good point. I wonder how much it warmed up.

On saturday, my cabin mates were anchored next to a boat that caught a number of 50″ plus fish in a matter of hours in the bay, im just wonderin how much of this equates to “right place at the right time”, i.e. “dumb luck” or actually patterning fish.

yeah, I’m only a rookie, but after spending some time up there the last two years, I gotta say, you can really do the whole paralysis by over analysis thing.
Two observations that I think could help out.

I talked to a lot of people always making observations during our conversations.

One spot that produced very well had a rocky bottom and although the Sturgeon is known for it’s likeness to sand or silt, there was food in those rocks in the form of crayfish (actually heard of a couple that were caught). There were numbers of fish there, but from what I gather you had to weed through the small ones as well. So I think there may have been a concentration of fish there.
The other thing was that some of the largest fish were caught on a crawler/minnow combo bait. I think there is something more to that, that shouldn’t be dismissed.

Other then that, I really think you could motor out and plunk the anchor anywhere and catch fish. Those fish are on the move there and they will find you bait, deep or shallow.
I’m not convinced they follow any type of channel or migration path. I observed them rolling on the surface from shore to shore.

I had 48 degrees in the Bay on Sunday morning.

Temps varied from 49 to almost 51 before the rain on Saturday up by Clementson. The rain cooled the surface temp back down to 49.5 degrees or so.

4 mile bay was absolutely on fire Sunday morning. We were anchored amongst a few boats hooking a fish every 5 minutes. Lots of boats were doubling up including ours. Sizes varied but there were plenty of 50s pulled up. And there were plenty of larger fish as well, they were all busting the surface!

The river from the Bay to the public access and down in front of the resorts put out tons of fish as well Saturday & Sunday, 60+ inchers were caught from this stretch.

I do agree with Dtro, you are going to get a headache if you think about this too hard. Pick a spot, anchor, and toss out a bait and wait for the fun to happen. Those that had success picked a lucky spot, I’m convinced of that. Even in the bay, the “area” where the biting fish were at moved around. With the number of boats out there, you have to be respectful with where you anchor and how close to other boats you get. You can’t go find the “spot on the spot” amongst them or you’ll have some angry fisherman next to ya.

For whatever reason, the sturgeon bite was on fire up and down the river compared to last year’s Excursion. Everybody caught lots of fish, everybody caught big fish, and they were caught all over the place, it didn’t matter where you went, you’d catch fish. How’s that for an analysis.