Willamette sturgeon this afternoon (5/30)

I think I will head over to George Roger's Park at about 3:30 pm for a little sturgeon fishing.  If anyone wants to join me I have sand shrimp, squid and night crawlers I need to use up.

-Craig

Crap! I was just over there walking the dog with the little lady, we must have just missed you. I would have tried to talk her into letting me go:)  Hope you caught a nice one!

Sorry I missed you NoahK.  I had a great time.  When I first got there,  a couple guys were fishing from Seyvlor inflatables.  One of them had just caught a native chinook.  He said he has been catching them just off the shore from GR park the last couple days.  I was shocked at how far up the river was.  It was way up the boat ramp in the trees.


After paddling around a bit and talking to the guys in the inflatables, I went and dropped anchor.  I thought I caught a very lethargic monster of some sort at first, but alas, it was just a very large, old water logged piece of wood.  It took about five minutes to reel it up it was so heavy.



After a couple of misses, I finally hooked into a good one.  Once again, I only seem to catch a keeper, when you can't keep them.  The fish had a seriously messed up face.  It's very recognizable.  Anyone else ever caught this guy before?

It tried to slap me when I was trying to land it.

Here is a front view of its face.

I had to pull stills off the GoPro since I was alone.  So I didn't get a real good shot of it.


I had several other misses after this and I started thinking there was something small slowly nibbling off the bait.  I was right.  It was this little dude.


He was maybe a foot long if he was lucky. 

After a while, I decided to try my luck at some small mouths.  I need some AOTY points.  Unfortunately, that didn't work out for me, but it was still a fun afternoon.

-Craig

Lots like a blast!

I also got to paddle up in the trees.   

The sonar said there was about 8 feet of water under me as I was paddling through the limbs of these trees.  I was hoping there would be a bass or two hiding below me.

Yeah I didn't it could get much higher.

Nice report Craig.  Sorry I couldn't join you on Monday.  Looks like there's still some good ones hanging out in the hood.