Finding sturgeon in the summer

Well I’ve been out twice since the new season opened and definitely am not finding the fish where they were last fall. Wondering if any of you have connected with some lake sturgeon yet. If so how many fow? Any other information would be really appreciated. I’ve been in 20-30 fow fishing holes and breaks that held fish last fall. The humminbird graphed very few of what I thought were sturgeon so I’m thinking they are wholely someplace else and was hoping you guys could help point me in the right direction where to start looking. Thanks in advance.

I know in years past while flathead fishing I would sometimes throw crawlers out as well for whatever bites and they seemed to be on the shallow flats at night. Like 4′-10 fow

I literally just turned off the car and came in from a shore fishing trip in Stillwater. There wasn’t hardly any fish biting for some odd reason. We tried everything from crawlers to live and cut sucker to live and cut mooneye and sheepshead. Only fish was my buddies first sturgeon. It hit the rod in shallower water (took just moments to hit bottom after casting). 45″ length with a 16″ girth and a DNR tag in her to boot! He landed it on 14lb test mono and a 30 size spinning outfit too. Took him 35 minutes to land it lol.

Crack a cold one and drive around until you see the big archs..
Them plop anchor on them and crack another cold one one.

My only advise.

I was out last night in the Bayport area 30 to 35 FOW water temp 79 degrees with no success. I couldn’t mark a fish on the bottom to save my life! Maybe the Sturgeon are still up river from spawn or deeper due to warm water temps??

I have spent a handful of nights upriver cat fishing and have not noticed any jumping like normal. Did catch a few 20″ers while trying to catch some cutbait a few weekends ago.

This photo was reportedly taken by a bridge worker in Stillwater.
I haven’t been able to contact the fella directly but he felt they were sturgeon.

Are they sturgeon?
Are we fishing too deep in the summer month?

All questions I don’t have the answers to yet.

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Hmmm…..if those are Sturgeon (and I don’t think they are) and they’re that shallow then you could throw a fly in front of them. Wouldn’t that be something? Time to dig out the 10 weight and about 500 yards of backing

SR

Looks more like flatheads.

I am hoping someone shows up to shingle my parents house before my next free weekend 11th. I signed up for that one cringing that i’m missing out on yet another flathead/sturgeon weekend. That’ll be the soonest i can get to the Croix next. My plan of attach isn’t to worry about wetting a line until i know i’m sitting on sturgeon; even if it takes 5+ hours tooling around.

Question, does beanies have a nice supply of large suckers yet?

Beanies…they had one yesterday afternoon.

Gonna give it another go on Wednesday night and go a lot shallower, See what the humminbird has to say and after seeing that flatty that Steve caught one of the rods in my boat will definitely have a bullhead on it. Pool 2 is gonna get mad at me for spending so much time away soon though

I think those are sturgeon. I’m just going off the pectoral fins. Are they feeding, who knows.

Was their a hatch around the time the picture was taken? I imagine a lot of floaters get caught swerling behind pilings.

Has anyone fished bridge pilings? I fished pilings in the summer for cats and crappies.

Brian Klawitter wrote:

Beanies…they had one yesterday afternoon.

Gotcha.

There were the best place to get them last fall.

it seems as though sturgeons in the summer months roam alot. ive caught them in the past in all sorts of locations, deep, shallow, points, wholes, humps so i honestly cant put a finger on them. i dont think they congregate like they do in the colder months
however,
one slight, very slight thing ive been noticing is they seem to be places that fish will likely use to go from point A to B, travel routes of some kind
last yr while slowly drifting for wallys in mid summer, we picked up 8 sturggies nuttin huge i think biggest was mid 40’s”. i would drop a pin on where we caught fish and noticed the pattern

kinda makes me want to drift fish for them using heavy gear
i havent fully tested out this theory yet but as soon as i can ill give it a go and rpt back =D

oh forgot, if i had to guess i think they are carps or maybe bluefin tuna =D lol

sidenote, if you every walk over St. anothy bridge and look in the shallow you’ll see the same thing or Koi in a pond looks just like that as well

I think you nailed it. Carp!

Will trade shad for waypoints

@MrSpecial

Thanks for the invite sunday. We gotta get out one of these days.

Just a vague thought…

Think about the cliche: find the food and you’ll find the fish.

Well, I have to guess that the food is in a different place in the summer than fall. So, maybe, shallow structure is where the food is. I also assume there is a much wider variety of food so the depth and locations may vary greatly.

– captain obvious

I never got around to trapping crayfish last year and maybe i will this year, but there are a lot of other non-baitfish food sources that the sturgeon is after.

here’s a cut/paste from the MN DNR website regarding lake sturgeon.

Found in Minnesota waterways year-round, lake sturgeon travel widely in loose aggregations within their range. They require extensive areas of shallow water to find food, lightly dragging their barbels along the bottom in search of prey. Their diet includes insect larvae and other invertebrates, snails, leeches, small mussels, and small fish.

FishBlood&RiverMud wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Brian Klawitter wrote:</div>
Beanies…they had one yesterday afternoon.

Gotcha.

There were the best place to get them last fall.

They are stocking up for this weekend. I have 3 doz on hold for me.

Went out last night. Only connected with one 41″ but had several bites and marked a ton of nice arcs on the humminbird. There was some kind of hatch last night and the top of the water was covered in bugs that the fish were feasting on so this may have hurt us a little but it was very encouraging to actually see the sturgeon. Tons of small sturgeon were coming to the surface to feed around the boat all night and we heard some huge splashes in the darkness not far off. The spot we were fishing was one of my fall spots but I simply moves in from 25′ to 9′ on a small flat. Hopefully this is the start to a great summer, thanks for the help.

The best summer sturgeon spots I know of in the lower St.Croix is either up by the damn in St.Croix Falls or off the Stillwater lift bridge.