Back to Sturgeon Fishing - Grandpa Gets His First!

With salmon season more-or-less over, and cooler weather coming, its time to start fishing for Sturgeon again.

Its been pretty slow by most reports - a few here and there but not a real strong bite yet...

...we did hear reports of pretty good fishing below the Longview, WA bridge, so we headed out. Here are the shrimp and smelt we took along for bait.

Friday was ugly weather... so we took raingear and the boat top along. Saturday morning turned out foggy, but beautiful and dry!

We first stopped at the "Tunnel" spot... do you recognize it? There were 8 or 9 boats there, and it was extremely quiet and peaceful. Unfortunately, NO ONE had even a bite that we could see.

So... we moved. Good thing, too. Out at a spot in the main river, we got bites immediately - and the first one was a keeper! Not huge, but at least 39" long so we were happy.

The water was pretty warm, and all of the shakers we caught fought extremely strong! We had some great splashing runs, and thought a few of them were keepers as well...

...but we only got the one keeper. 6 other shakers to the boat, and a few missed... it was pretty slow for 'normal' sturgeon fishing.

The sun came out, and it got HOT!

Best part is that Grandpa finally came along. The kids have all caught hundreds of fish, and keepers too - but this was the old man's first time out and he had fun with a shaker.

He didn't even have to bait a hook or touch the fish, either!

Next time we'll put him on a keeper...

Good job, Gramps!