Sturgeon fishing is like muskie fishing, it takes patience, it's tedious, but the fish are enormous. Well, that's how it's supposed to be anyway.
In San Pablo Bay in Northern California, anglers are seeing the best Sturgeon season in recent memory, according to the Mercury News.
"The Sturgeon fishing now is as good as I've ever seen it." Those are the words of Captain Jim Cox, who runs the charter boat Touch of Gray. Cox would know, he's been fishing in San Pablo Bay for more than thirty years. Gordon Hough, another Sturgeon guide in the bay, caught and released 20 Sturgeon in a recent trip.
They're also bigger than usual. Multiple 8-foot-long fish have been reported to tackle shops, and on March 29 a San Francisco angler caught and released a 12-foot-long Sturgeon he estimated at 1,000 pounds.
Scientists are puzzled as to why there are so many more fish in the bay, although some speculate that a rainy winter and spring, which will often cause Sturgeon to spawn, has got post-spawn fish moving into the bay earlier than usual. There's a slot limit, and anglers can't keep fish longer than 66 inches, so photos, like this one of Sean Daugherty and his 76-inch fish, are the only proof we've got of the true monsters.
He shows off some smaller fish with friend Nathan Ryders in the second photo.
-Rick Bach
Check out video of an 8-foot, 450-pound sturgeon from the Columbia River.
