Sturgeon

Does anybody know anything about these fish? I guess I mean about fishing for them on purpose? How its done, bait, tackle, methods………….. Any resourses that a guy could check up on and try and target these fish on purpose…………. I have never come across any information on them but think they would be a great fish to get my young sons to cautch. Thanks

Me too. spill the beans, please

My buddies make a yearly spring trip up to the Rainy river to target Sturgeon. They use crawlers on circle hooks and a 2 oz. slip sinker. They hammer em every year! I’m not sure how to target them any other time of year. I know they have a BLAST! They ask me every year to go with and I always have something else going. Not next spring, I’m going!!

BIRDDOG

Sturgeon will take a big gob of crawlers on the bottom. The bigger ones will also take cut bait or even a whole fish dead on the bottom. Be prepared for a big fish. Not recommended for small kids unless you like to see them fly overboard.

My Brother used to live in Oregon near the Snake river, and I fished them a couple time there. They have what they call “Sturgeon Candy”, a kinda pickled fish that is sold at all the bait stores, or we used large suckers or other minnows (6-12″). We always fished current areas in pretty deep areas where we needed 4-12 oz of weight and used a trianglar weight so it does not roll. We had a blast catching them, our biggest was barely legal at 65″, but are a blast to catch.

By no means am I an expert, but once a year I will catch sturgoen while catfishing in the fall below Red Wing Dam. All I do is anchor in 20+ of water and throw night crawlers on the bottom and always seem to catch a few..Rig heavy they are tough fish…

The lake sturgeon season on the Croix is only open for a short time each year. This year it’s Sept 3rd through Oct 16. Limit is one fish over 50 inches.

When the season does open you will find guys anchored up at the top of the Kinny fishing them. I’ve seen some real brutes caught. Never seen anyone keep one. As mentioned above, glob of crawler on the bottom and hang on!

rangler, just an fyi and I’m sure you are aware of it, but lake sturgeon are closed year around below the Red Wing dam. So “targeting” them would be a no-no…..

-J.

About 15years back we went out on a launch near Wheelers Pt. on Lake of the Woods.We were targeting Walleyes, anchored fishing the bottom with minnows.In 1-1/2 days we boated 13 Sturgeon up to 43in.This was mid Sept.

Thanks Jon. I edited my post.

I have caught them the last few years while cat fishing. I wouldn’t recommend using nightcrawlers because of the sheephead and other rough fish. As I said we caught them while catfishing and I would recommend using the same tackle and techniques. We use fresh cut sucker, on about a 5/0 circle hook anchored with about a 2 or 3 oz No-Roll sinker. We find a nice deep hole with some current and anchor the boat at the head of the hole. Toss out the cut bait and relax and listen to the radio. Last year on the 27th of October we caught 9 sturgeon in one afternoon, largest fish was 52″. We did catch one nice channel cat in that same spot. They are a blast to catch.

Wow, those would be a blast to hook into. I hear they are VERY slow growing, so you might be catching fish that are decades old. Very cool.

There is a pretty good sturgeon population on the St Croix. We catch a lot of them ice fishing – that is when it is really fun. If you are going to fish for them you don’t need any special tackle or equipment. Most of the places I have caught them is relatively open water with no timber or anything to worry about them getting into. You don’t need to horse them in, be patient, let them make their long runs and then slowly work them back to the boat. It is when you try to horse them in that you lose them because the hooks pull loose. I use relatively heavy tackle because I am cat fishing but any good reel on a medium heavy rod with about 20# test line should be adequate. I have caught them on both spinning tackle and bait casting equipment. I like the Shakespeare Ugly Stick Catfishing rods in a medium heavy action, they are limber enough to handle circle hooks well. You don’t want too stiff a rod if you are fishing circle hooks.

If you are fishing circle hooks, let the fish hook themselves. They cruise along the bottom like big vacuum cleaners and will just inhale your bait. Their mouths are shaped like a big funnel right under their body right below their head. They will suck up your cut bait and continue to swim off. Have you reels engaged when they are in the rod holder, I don’t use bait clickers when I am fishing a cut bait rod with circle hooks. Leave your rod in the holder until it is loaded up by the fish (meaning it is bent over and looks like it is about to break in half). Believe me, you will struggle to get the rod out of the holder because they are strong fish but by then you know that they are well hooked. I have never seen them peck, peck at a bait. They just take it and are gone.

If you get a big one on and you have a partner with you, you may want to clear the other rods from the water. Believe me, the big ones will come to the boat and then take off again on a long run. If you leave the other rods in you can end up with a tangled mess in the bottom of the boat.

I buy large suckers and then fillet them and chunk them in 1 1/2 inch strips. I change to fresh bait about every 15 minutes because the blood and oil wears off the bait over time. If you can, keep fresh bait on as much as possible. The sucker heads will work if you crush them up until they are soft. If you cannot get suckers you can use fatheads. That is what we catch them on when ice fishing.

Here is a picture of one I got late at night while flathead fishing on 16 September last year on the St Croix. This guy stayed down deep the whole time and tried his best to pull me out of the boat. I thought I must have a new state record flathead catfish and then when he came into the light I couldn’t believe it. He was 49″ long and I caught him right at midnight.

Comanchero thats is some great info. Nine in one day that would be awesome . We also catch a few under the ice but the olny ones we have caught on soft water were on crawler harnesses.

Two of the guys I work with go out to the Columbia every year. There best method had been 3-way. I cannot remember what size weight but it almost looks like the ones you use for hand lining(1-2lbs?) and what we would see as shad for bait. I dont know the rules here on using shad but they sure would be easy to catch if needed. They do not have to be alive but shad seem to break down pretty fast after they die so the fresher the better I could olny imadgine. They olny drag at about 1-1/2 mph and the shad had to be hooked right to get a nice bounce off the bottom. I would like to try it sometime out here but have to do a little homework first.(maybe steal a little of there gear )

When I lived in Iowa we would pick one up fishing walleyes every now and then, these were the smaller variety usually about 2-3 lbs, me dad would smoke them and man were they good eating.

Thanks for all the information guys I think i need to try to get one of these fish on the Croix……….. All the information and the pics are very helpful……

If i learn how to post pics here and i get one i’ll put it here for all to see

Mark

sippi,
Them small ones are shovelnose strugeon usually. We usually get a few down on P4 if your anywhere near the dam. We were catching them in the Croix last winter also. Alot of the ones I seen had black patches on them like a cow. Pretty cool.Keep seeing more and more every year in these rivers.

Here’s a pic of a Shovelnose my buddy caught while jigging for walleyes in Redwing. They look a lot different!

Ferny.

Try fishing around the shallow riffles and rock piles on the upper st croix. They do not seem to be deep water fish. Caught them in some very shallow water before.
Crawlers are a good bait for them but as comamcharo said you will most likely need to deal with other fish stealing your bait. They will hit just about any live bait.

It would surprise you how wide spread they are on the St Croix. I use an underwater camera when I ice fish and I have seen them many times on the camera. I was up in the north end of Andersen Bay at Bayport in about 10′ of water. I had the camera down and noticed that there were a lot of shad both alive and dead in the area. I had on a small swedish pimple with a minnow head dangling off the treble hook. As I was watching for fish, a sturgeon swam into the camera headed right at my bait. I dropped the pimple to the bottom expecting it to swim by. The fish swam by and did an immediate turn, came back to my bait lying on the bottom, and hovered about 4″ to 6″ off the bottom and just started vacuuming the bottom. There was silt flying and she sucked up my pimple and started to swim off. She got hooked and in the ensuing battle she got all tangled in the camera and just made a mess of everything. I finally got her in after about 10 minutes. She was a small one, only about 24″ but on 4# test line it was quite a struggle. It was interesting to watch one actually feed, she was sucking in silt and gravel and anything else in the vicinity. She raised a regular dust cloud on the bottom. I am sure she was feeding on the dead shad in the area. If you can find concentrations of shad and other forage fish, I would think the sturgeon are in the vicinity. Then it is only a matter of presenting your bait in the area.