sturgeon help

[Fishaholic]

okay i need tips  and tricks on sturgeon fishing i have used smelt pickeled squid and regular squid. i have a 10 foot pole with 65 pound braided line i have fished at friends landing. any other pllace around aberdeen or close?  i also have a 7 foot salmon pole with 20 pound test i use to i use 4 to 10 oz weights with 3/0 to 7/0 hooks i have tryed everything the internet says.  any advice will help

       thanks

[7GillOutfitters]

Try sandshrimp, wrap it with roe mesh or panty hose, using elastic thread to wrap it up and on the hook.  Dennis Company carries all the stuff to wrap it.  On the Chehalis fish the high tide.  Preferably an hour before slack and slack tide itself.

[Fishaholic]

will the fish bite with it being wrapped up and i use the wrap it works great. does anyone know if they will eat bullheads there in the river  and i was reading that they eat whats  in there enviorment.

[CamoDup]

You may already know this but... if your line isn't tight you will never catch anything. When I'm fishing on the Columbia I'm always making sure my line is tight by pulling it up and letting it drop till it hits the bottom then give it a few reels.  I do this about every minute or so.  Also, you might want to use more weight. We use anything from 10 oz to 15oz depending on the current.  We mostly use pickled herring.  Also, try some clam scent on your weight to get the smell down river to get the fish moving up stream towards your bait. Good luck!

[7GillOutfitters]

Heard stories of worms, never tried them though, but I have caught sturgeon that I opened up the stomach to find large quantities of bullheads.  I never tried them for bait though.  The wrap does not effect the bite, but make sure you leave the hook point exposed enough to get penetration.  The wrap keeps the bullheads from robbing your bait, many times we will have a bullhead pecking on the bait and have a sturgeon slam it while the bullhead was biting.  I have even caught a few that still had the bullhead that was trying to rob our bait in its mouth.

[Fishaholic]

okay thank you all i think i may try bullheads then lol

[Ripper]

Try fishing with a night crawler. You'll catch bullheads and any sturgeon that are cruising. Sturgeon like night crawlers especially after it rains. River should be full of worms right now. Also try salmon bellies at this time of year. They are gorging on spawned out salmon. Good luck.

[HntnFsh]

 I second the night crawlers. I usually add some to my shrimp with stretchy thread. Works great.

[Screaminreelz]

Shorten the leader don't use anything more than 18 inches in fact that may be a little long. i try to keep them around 13-14 inches so they lay close to the weight, if one does decide to pick it up you'll see it/feel it right away.

[Encore 280]

Try Willapa Bay up river between the green markers 15 and 19 up in that area.

[TONTO]

 If you're a hook setter use a sharp hook like a Gami octopuss, if you prefer to sit back and let em take it try an Owners barbless circle hook.

[Jason]

We always have good luck with sand shrimp and nite crawlers. Lay 3-4 nite crawlers across the sand shrimp and wrap it with elastic string. And yes make sure you keep your line tight.

[cohoho]

Bank fishing, I haven't done too much for Sturgeon, but the same baits apply.  Try everything under the sink..  I do not believe in fresh bait, as I have gone side by side with folks that only will use fresh stuff and have doubled their catch rate over and over..  In fact I save my sand shrimp for future trips, throw them in the freezer and use next time...  Smellier the better....  Presentation is clearly not a factor either, it is all about scent and getting as much scent into the water as possible...   Funny thing I had an old dude (neighbor - 81) explain how to tie on an anchovy one time, he went on and on about each wrap, each half hitch, over and over again.  This went on for probably five minutes.  After all the explanation, he then laid it on the floor of the boat and stamped on it....  He laughed and laughed about it for the rest of the day how attentive I was to his techniques....  Alot of times squid works best, and it stays on for multiple fish...  Sand shrimp, I normally utilize two per hook.  Mix it up for time to time, throw something different - shrimp, anchovy, worms, shad fillets, shad gills, halibut skin, octopus, herring mop, etc.... on each rod or a combo wrap on 6/0 or 7/0 hook, oversized 11/0 to 12/0 hooks or 13/0 circle hooks with whole shad...  See what the bite is one then capitalize on that bait till the bite stops and then try something different.    Wish we could use Lampreys as the old guy swore by them back when they were legal to use....   Weight wise, it all about the current flow..  If the weight doesn't hold bottom, let out alittle more line or go bigger in weight... Between 8 ounce and 32 ounce is what I have on the boat...  I like to cast it away from the boat as far as possible, allowing for the movement of the boat, if too close the lines get pulled in, especially in shallow draft boat... Again as others suggested keeping lines tight as possible to detect minor bites.  Winter bites, use seriously lite tipped rods to detect the winter light biter..  Summer, doesn't matter as it is normally hit and run anyhow...    I still have the most fun with Sturgeon since moving here...  Good days and bad days for sure, but when it is good it literally rocks all others action completely....

[HntnFsh]

Cohoho I agree with what you say about the fresh bait. I use to love it when I walked in a stire and their sandshrimp were dead and stinky. And they would say "you can just have them"  Killed a lot of sturgeon on free,dead, sandshrimp.

[cohoho]

Yea, they do like to give those ones away...  Very nice for Sturgeon for sure... 

A couple other areas are once on anchor use drift socks as much as possible to keep you in same line with bait, if the boat is moving you won't feel the bite.  I use my kicker 80% of the time in reverse to keep anchor line tight and as straight as I can.  If wind is a problem sometimes the drift socks off the bow and along the sides of the boat prevent the side to side blowing versus straight behind the end of the boat...

Waiting for a new carburetor for the kicker to arrive and then going to head out for some catch and release action...

[Fishaholic]

okay thanks guys  i was looking and someone said pork works to so i put some garlic power on it and froze it and the day before i go out ill put it outside so it will get nice and stinky

[bankwalker]

On the chehalis i fish a 4/0 or 5/0 hook, ONE single sandshrimp! Fishing this method allows two things to happen...A) squaw fish with take all the shrimp off in about 3 minutes....therefore you know it's not a sturgeon. B) when a sturgeon does bite it will hooks itself within the 1st few times it picks up the bait.

I watched a guy hook multiple fish in one night fishing like that. He gave me the tip and my hookup ratio skyrocketed last winter. Most all fish I hooked slammed the rod and pulled line before I even knew I was getting a bite.

For anyone that fishes the chehalis and catches fish on a regular enough basis to notice knows that chehalis sturgeon are notoriously picky slow biters.
Back when I fished 2 to 3 shrimp, or herring, or squid...I would have to let them bite for 10 to 20 minutes to get a solid pick up good enough to confidently set the hook, or just hope to time the little tiny bites good enough to hook them.

One main thing on the chehalis. If you hook 2 to 5 a year feel lucky. Unless you get lucky and find that pod of fish and hook multiple fish in one night.

[Fishnclifff]

On the chehalis i fish a 4/0 or 5/0 hook, ONE single sandshrimp! Fishing this method allows two things to happen...A) squaw fish with take all the shrimp off in about 3 minutes....therefore you know it's not a sturgeon. B) when a sturgeon does bite it will hooks itself within the 1st few times it picks up the bait.

I watched a guy hook multiple fish in one night fishing like that. He gave me the tip and my hookup ratio skyrocketed last winter. Most all fish I hooked slammed the rod and pulled line before I even knew I was getting a bite.

For anyone that fishes the chehalis and catches fish on a regular enough basis to notice knows that chehalis sturgeon are notoriously picky slow biters.
Back when I fished 2 to 3 shrimp, or herring, or squid...I would have to let them bite for 10 to 20 minutes to get a solid pick up good enough to confidently set the hook, or just hope to time the little tiny bites good enough to hook them.

One main thing on the chehalis. If you hook 2 to 5 a year feel lucky. Unless you get lucky and find that pod of fish and hook multiple fish in one night.

Didn't know it was legal to catch sturgeon at night. Hmmm.

[bankwalker]

The chehalis is open 24hrs a day for sturgeon.

[bankwalker]

I won't even bother fishing during daylight hours.

[BigGoonTuna]

2-5 a year, man...guess it's been a loooong tmie since i've fished it for sturgeon.  that used to be the daily average, granted most of them were shakers.  it's too bad what's happened to that river in the past 15+ years.

[bankwalker]

Yea it's pretty sad. It use to be a good fishery

[Fishnclifff]

The chehalis is open 24hrs a day for sturgeon.

I did not know that.