Mid-winter Portland Sturgeon Intel

FFTW, you name it, I'll be there*.

Brian

*assuming I get the go ahead from the wife

Sounds like a plan.. Read this before ya set a date, unless theres not much wiggle room for a date..Whatever , im there!!

http://www.landbigfish.com/articles/default.cfm?ID=553

I snipped a couple paragraphs that i thought relevant:

"Unlike fresh water fisheries such as the Willamette and Columbia rivers, tides play a critical role in sturgeon fishing in any bay or stretch of tidewater. Sturgeon like a lot of water movement, so minus tides tend to produce more fish. And while it certainly isn’t impossible to catch sturgeon on an incoming tide or during a tide cycle that doesn’t produce minus tides, you will increase your chances by targeting your fishing time to days during a minus tide cycle."

seems to be our first stop, should be to go see sherry:

"Virtually any of the flats, or shallow areas, dotting Tillamook Bay will attract sturgeon at one time or another. There are, however, a few favorite, consistent spots you should know. The Dolphins, at Bay City, South Channel - near the oyster beds lining the western edge of the bay - and the Corral, near the center of the bay, are three of the best. Rather than explain here in writing how to find each of these, a daunting task at best, I strongly recommend you visit Sherry Lyster at Lyster’s Bait, just a mile north of Garibaldi on Hwy 101. She has good maps of the bay for sale that show these and other favorite areas"

Lots of good info on that page. It seems they don't catch very many giants there, which is ok with me..

That's some good info you found there Roy. I figured Tillamook would be more like the SF Bay fishery in California. Anyway, I went ahead and looked up some tides (BTW, IMHO the best tide tool on the net is http://tbone.biol.sc.edu/tide/).

The afternoon tides are excellent this weekend...
minus tides, outgoing pretty much all day...
Feb 16     08:12 / 7.52 ft     16:20 / -0.21 ft
Feb 17     09:24 / 7.62 ft     17:17 / -0.47 ft     
Feb 18      10:27 / 7.76 ft    18:05 / -0.62 ft    

The weekend FFTW will be in town.. not so much..
not a minus.. out going in the wee hours of the morning and late evening..  pretty much incoming all day long.
Feb 23     02:27 / 7.13 ft     08:57 / 1.16 ft     14:26 / 6.68 ft     21:03 / 0.71 ft     
Feb 24          02:56 / 7.13 ft    09:39 / 1.04 ft    15:11 / 6.13 ft    21:33 / 1.25 ft    

So.. if anyone wants to try Tillamook sturgeon this weekend (Sat,Sun, or Mon) let me know.  Saturday might be hard in that I'll have to spend an hour or two to gather the parts and finish off my sturgeon anchor system.  Otherwise the plan would be to drive out in the morning hit Sherry up for some bait and intel then go out and catch a few sturgeon.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the weather is supposed to be beautiful!!!

Maybe when FFTW is in town we give the Willamette a shot.  After all it's his home turf and much closer (to me anyway).  I've heard they are catching lots of smaller sturgeon upriver from the St. John's bridge and you don't necessarily have to be in 100 ft of water.  Sounds like even 20-40ft will do.

Brian

As far as I can tell, there are some regulation differences between the Columbia/Willamette sturgeon fishery and the coastal (e.g. Tillamook) fishery.

On the Col/Willy you can only keep sturgeon Thurs-Sun and you can only use single barbless hooks.

On the coast you can keep fish all week and your hook can have a barb. I'm a barbless man myself, so I guess that really doesn't matter to me.  I'm also not planning on keeping a sturgeon, but I'm guessing a Tillamook sturgeon might be a safer bet than a Willy sturgeon (contaminant wise) for those looking to stock up the freezer.

Brian

As for a Willamette report...this from yesterday (Thursday the 14th). 

http://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?p=1875961#post1875961

Man Hell of a nice day, tons of fish and the water warmed up to 44.5 so the Sturgeon bite was finally on! Landed over 50 fish yesterday and only 3 or 4 worth measuring, but lots of action with doubles and triples, nice weather, and we did see 3 lucky keepers boated just not by us surprisingly, and 2 oversize jump! All in all a good day of fishing and should just keep gettin better!

Now I'm confused.  Seems like Tillamook is a better choice for shallower anchoring depth, better % of keepers, and less contaminants.  The Willy on the other hand is much closer with lots of action.

Hmmm...  I just need to find someone to go with me to appease my wife's sense of safety.  Something about not wanting to pay the mortgage by herself on her measly Post-doc's salary.

This weekend is a little too soon. Need a bit more time to be ready.

I'd be into doing the Willamette next weekend, The drive isn't much longer then going to tillamook.

Okay, how about Sun Feb 24th when FFTW is in town?  I'll find some quite pond to troll this weekend.   Or ... maybe I'll try some combat steelhead bank fishing on the Sandy or Clackamas.

Brian

Sounds good to me. That'll give me some time to get my gear together, and finish my anchor. I need to make, or find something to wind the rope on. I have an idea for a pvc setup, need to get on it..Englund marine didn't have one of those plastic winder things..Maybe wally or a bait shop will have one..

I bank fished the east fork of the millicoma this morning but didn't do any good. only had an hour to fish.. Probably gonna float around on Eel lake again tomorrow.

Well, things aren't going too smoothly for me to make this trip.Unless a small miracle happens and i sell my truck today or tomorrow.

My anchor is not done and i still need to make a  snare gaff thingy. Grr.

So, Whats the status on anyone else making this trip? If there was a good group goin, i'd figure out how to make it.

I haven't been able to figure out the regs on the snare thingy (ala Erik "KzReelRods" Kunz).  Seems that no one uses them up here. I did ask some of the ODFW Troopers at the Sportsmen's Show in Portland about a week ago and they weren't sure about it themselves.  I have seen tail-noose thingies at the Sportsman's Warehouse for sturgeon no sale, so maybe they snares are okay too.  My plan was to go without this time.  I figure most of the sturgeon will be shakers and a decent leather work glove should do the trick for landing them.  Anything real big and I'll have to pop the barbless hook or cut the leader.  If I do get a keeper.. well, measuring on board for AOTY will be interesting.  I think I'm going to make some marks on the side of my boat for the slot.

My anchor isn't done either, but a few hours on Saturday will take care of that.  I just haven't decided between off the stern for better fishing or off the bow for safety (so I can see debris coming at me from up river).

Anyway, as far as who's going.. I was hoping at least the three of us (myself, FFTW, and you CBY).  Good luck on selling the truck.  I'm guessing I'll hear more from FFTW as we get closer to Sunday.

Anyone else out there interested in joining us (me)?

Brian

I'll be out of town the next two weekends, but I'd be interested after that.

Don't count me out yet..I'll have a better idea tomorrow night, but im gonna try hard to make it. It's a long drive, 4+ hours, but finding people to go dino fishin with in this area might be hard for a while..

So, anyone that has to drive less then 4 1/2 hours should make it if i do right ?

but i agree, two guys with gloves could handle it. As far as measuring, would be a serious challenge alone since they don't float like a normal fish. thats where teamwork comes in. anyway, it's all kinda gonna be a learning experience, especially for me.

do you have an exact launch point in mind?

Unless I hear otherwise from FFTW, I'm thinking Cathedral Park.

http://www.northwestkayakanglers.com/wiki/index.php/Cathedral_Park

Brian

OK, I can make it, if there's gonna be at least three. I guess you haven't talked to FFTW yet huh Brian?


Heres the report, i think it's new, still sounds good:

Angling for winter steelhead has picked up slightly with the warmer weather and water temperatures. There have been reports of spring chinook being caught in the Meldrum bar area as well as the Selwood Bridge area of the lower Willamette River but success is still low. Best angling continues to be from the Meldrum Bar area downstream, but effort is increasing around the mouth of the Clackamas for fish that may be holding, waiting for warmer water temperatures.

Sturgeon angling is good in the lower Willamette River from St. Johns to Oregon City. Recent cold temperatures have affected the fishery, but warmer weather has improved fishing success. Fishing could continue to improve over the next couple weeks.


and i found the area on the  NOAA chart viewer. Cool site, you can print the section you want to study or take with you:

http://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/18526.shtml

It's up a few inches and a little to the right of the NOAA symbol.

As far as the anchor, I put an anchor release for the back on one side and im gonna put one for the front on the other side tomorrow, just to have all the bases covered.

Gonna spool my reel with 30 pound green Maxima and i got some pre-tied leaders(yes, i'm lazy). here's a pic of the setup, untied.

http://www.northwestkayakanglers.com/gallery/191_21_02_08_12_55_04.JPG

Now just picture 60 inches worth of AOTY points on the business end...

I'll give FFTW a ping right now.

As for the lazy leaders... I bought a set myself.

Brian