STURGEON has anyone caught one on a fly?
I saw a post here with the picture of a trout lashed to the side of a horse and it reminded me of my Idaho history.
In the days before big dams and motorcars, there were pictures taken of giant freshwater sturgeon caught with chickens as bait and pulled out of the Snake River with horses.
That said, is any fly fishing done for sturgeon?
Just curious.
I've tried (token attempt) while sampling them for work. I don't see why it couldn't be done where we were, the walleye, pike, and redhorse piked up the flies... the sturgeon only went for the baited lines. Next year I will make an effort to target them with flies, sinking lines, softbodied flies with good motion, etc.
The sturgeon we were catching with conventional tackle ranged from 25lbs to 50lbs.
I have for years fished for Sturgeon on the Columbia river from both the Washington and Oregon side. It might be interesting to note that I found the fish would take a tied on fresh smelt with abandon when the bait was tied to the hook tail first. That way the fish when working up against the strong currents would IMO more readily take the bait head first. It worked for me. You might consider making your flies backwards rather than conventional. Good luck, Jonezee
Sturgeon are protected species here.
jed
Sturgeon
Salmon, Trout & Steelhead magazine had an article on fly fishing for sturgeon. They did manage to catch a few, some large ones at that. I can't remember what was used for flies or tackle.
Ya, sturgeon are protected here in Idaho also, if you land one, you must keep them in the water 100% of the time until released. The closest I have been to the monsters is the big tank at Cabela's.
Fishing the Great Beyond
Larry Dahlberg,,, monserous thing. Far bigger than he was. He had to jump in with it. Released of course.
Couple years ago, a 120 pound Sturgeon washed up on the shore of Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis. DNR figured the Sturgeon was about 90 years old. What puzzled them is how it got there in the first place.
Lake Calhoun empties into Minnehaha Creek, that empties into the Mississippi River, after going over Minnehaha Falls. So someone had to transplant the fish back around 1920, from the St. Croix River, which is the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin (about 30 miles to the east).
St Croix River supplied most of the Eastern Coast of the USA with Sturgeon Caviar, in the 1880's, but over harvesting of the eggs (they cut the bellies open and toss the away the fish), almost eliminated these giant fish from our waters.
Sturgeon grow very slowly, and do not mate until about 10 years of age, and then they only spawn once ever five years or so! They have a exoskeleton, of hard plates, protecting their body. They can live to well over 100 years of age.
Going after a huge sturgeon and killing it is like going after an elephant and killing it....fortunately when we fish we can use catch and release.
We have fished'em in the SF bay system. They are pretty much bottom feeders going by smell. They have several barbels near the "siphon".
We have been around them for around (GULP) 50yrs. We have only ssen one taken on an artificial.....and that fish had only one eye. Go figure THAT one out! It took a hair raiser jig while halibut were being targeted.
....lee s.
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