Fishin Stories.....

Sturgeon Fishing with Dad...

Have you ever dreamed "40 yrs." of catching a Sturgeon and then in 45 short minutes - have your dream come true........its kind of tragic !

The fish played with the bait "typical for White Sturgeon" and the pole "ever so slightly" reacted to its bite. If your eyes were tired "as mine were" you would not have noticed the movement at the tip of the rod as  the gentle giant moved back to inspect its next meal….But, today was special!

The meager tug of the line that always comes twice did not go unnoticed, but, it did cause panic!. With the pole  against my left knee, and the line between my fingers, I waited for the fish to return. When he did - I would be ready......yea sure..!

The butterflies start immediately....!

Your stomach turns to jello and you gulp down that first doubt - did I wait too long? You can feel your Son's eyes - as they burn holes through the sea breezes looking at your pole that just sits there. Then, tap - tug - tug and you pull back hard to set the razor sharp hook deep into his jaw - "Oh God don't miss him" - you tell  yourself.

Then, the pole stops short, and the line draws taut as a look of horror crosses your face - he's comin' up. Adrenaline floods through your veins in tune to the mighty Sturgeon's leap for life.  Keep the line tight, hold the pole up, take up on the slack, pray, hold your mouth just right, was the hook sharp enough, all these things pass through your mind as you remember your Dad and the first fish you out-smarted.

Whenever I  missed a fish Dad always said, "Well son, you didn't hold your mouth right".  You know, "he would continue"  it's okay when the fish wins, to let it swim away, cause it will always be there for another day. I think about that, now that Dad is gone, and that confounded old fish is still out there.  "Maybe today will be special" goes through my mind as the Gentle Giant pulls all the line from my real...!

Seal in the boat...

The day was beautiful for early March, and the opening day of Salmon season.   We launched out of  Pillar Point at Half Moon Bay and were greeted by a flat, mirror-imaged Pacific Ocean.  Soon after the launch started, the ocean turned to black swirls, breakers, and white foam as the props from the 250 eager fishing boats churned up the once quiet water world.

Three of us, Rob, Rick, and Tim sat in anticipation of catching our first Salmon of the year as we started the trip from the breakwater to deep reef - some 25 miles Southwest of Pillar Point, Buoy #1.

Time past slowly this morning. But, as the horizon gave way to drifting boats, our level of excitement increased. As we stopped the engine, I counted 14 other boats that were already with net in hand as they brought in the first fish of the day.

It didn't take but 5 minutes to set up four poles drifting anchovies at a depth of 25 pulls. My guess is that somewhere between 25 and 50' down. The first fish hit on Tim's pole, but he let the fish have a second chance.  Seems in his excitement of the moment, he tried to set the hook into the fish's lip but instead pulled it clean out of the Salmon's mouth.  Lesson learned.

The next fish also attacked Tim's anchovy - but, this time add one fish to the ice chest. It bit hard, bouncing the pole so much that Rick and I thought Tim was going to jump over board as he pulled the pole from its holder. He gave the salmon line as it pulled hard reeling off 150' of line while swallowing the bait.  Without setting the hook, Tim started reeling in, which set the hook deep in the fish's stomach.  Five minutes later, we netted our first 18 lb. King salmon, fresh from the sea.  By this time, the ocean had calmed down and the mirror image of Tim's face as I netted the fish was a site to remember.

Four more 15- to 20-lb Salmon were caught in the next 1 1/2 hrs leaving us with 1 more fish for our limit of 6 Salmon. All the fish we had caught were fresh King Salmon with real dark-fleshed lips, the mark of wild Kings.

The next fish hooked is a blurred memory but what we all remember is its size. The fish put up a fight for 20 minutes before we could get it close to the boat or even think about netting it. Then  the net was slipped under the King, but the fish was too big and a foot of its tail was dragging water. Just as one of us started to lift the prize King from the ocean, all the excitement of the moment changed to horror as a 2000 lb sea lion rose from the depths "out of no where" and bit the Salmon in half, right out of the net. The large black predator came down with such a force it pushed our boat out of its way and lay back to eat its catch while smiling at us. We just stood there, covered in Salmon blood, with a frozen look of disbelief on our faces.

I think that look of disbelief is still etched into our faces. But, when I think about the experience it only reinforces the thought in me of how mighty the oceans are.  We were the visitors there that day.....not the Sea Lion.. 

Judy and the Sturgeon...

I caught my first keeper sturgeon on August 20th. I have been fishing for
sturgeon for two years. I have only caught two other sturgeons, one was 25"
and the other was 33". I thought those two were exciting to reel in, but it
was no comparison to reeling in the "Big One".

My boyfriend, John and I were fishing over by where the Glomar (Howard
Hugh's boat) was anchored. It was about 36' of water, 2:30 in the afternoon.
We were using grass shrimp and pile worms for bait. I just baited my hooked
and casted out, it wasn't two minutes in the water, when BAM!! I knew I had
something on the other end of my line, and it was BIG. John, says, oh baby,
I think you finally got you the big one. I instantly felt scared. I don't
know why I was scared. Maybe it was the adrenaline running through me. John
started to coach me on how to reel it in. You could tell right away that he
was a fighter. I would say that it took me 20 minutes of fighting with the
sturgeon to get it to the boat. When it surfaced, John said that he didn't
feel that the net was going to be big enough. We only had a net big enough
to net a large stripper. Oh great I said what are we suppose to do now.
Well, we tried to net it anyway, as you know, it got upset and ran like the
wind. Once again, I am fighting with the sturgeon. Second time up to the
boat, John tried to lasso it. Third time to the boat, he tried to pick it up
by the gill plate. Fourth time to the boat, we got it halfway in the boat,
and it flipped flopped out, off it went again. Fifth time to the boat, it
was either me or the fish. And I wasn't going to give up my first keeper. I
was tired, but then so was the sturgeon. Floating next to the boat, John and
I decided to just go for it. John grab the side fin and I grab it on the lip
and we lifted it in the boat. It was big, compared to the 16' aluminum boat
we were in. My sturgeon was 63" and I was taking him home. We pulled
anchor and headed for shore to weigh him at the Martinez Marina Bait Shop.
He weighted in at 66.9 lbs.  I was so proud of myself. I caught my sturgeon
on a leader that I had made myself. When we got the sturgeon home to clean
it. We discovered that my sturgeon was female due to the eggs. So I named my
first sturgeon "Furgee".

Judy Krahulik

Darren by the Sisters....

I caught the sturgeon on Dec. 23rd, 2000. in San Pablo Bay anchored by the Sisters, during the out-going tide. We caught 4 sturgeon that day on grass shrimp. Three sturgeon were shakers, but the 4th was the one I wanted. He was caught on my mooching rod, with a 6500C, and 15# test.  Oh, by the way, it was my FIRST Big Game Sturgeon ever :-) and we were on my friend Dan's boat. Dan is a regular in San Pablo Bay and I was the rookie. I've caught 50# salmon before, but this was a lot more fun !!!
 

Tight lines,
Darren Gillis

A Fisherman's Lasting Smile

Were you lucky enough to know Fisherman George Peza. I was not..! George pasted away on Monday last - doing what he loved - Fishing in Honker Bay.

George started the day as normal as a Monday could be, with maybe three or four things on his mind. 

He told Tony Lopez at McAvoy bait shop in Bay Point, Ca. "things look good, 'I might catch one today'" he said. Course all fishermen think that. George was also worried about fishing by himself but he did not mention that to the "guys" at Tony's place. He had asked his neighbor to go out, but the guy couldn't make it. 

George was excited about this up-coming weekend and the big Sturgeon Derby. He kept checking his wallet for the entry ticket that set him back $25 bucks. The one thing he tried not to think about was the pain in his left arm that started while tying up his new boat at the dock yesterday. Damn muscles anyway! 

The boat was  a thing of beauty, at $37,000 - the Striper fishing boat had everything George needed for comfort. Days not out fishing, he would clean the boat, or just sit in it and dream.

After some worry that George was out after dark, some fishing buddy's went out to his favorite fishing hole. They found the boat, anchored safe in the rivers current, but totally dark & without running lights. Inside was George, long since passed away, but not alone. Under George with the hooks still  in its mouth and a snair around it gills was a 60" White Sturgeon, that was still alive. "George died doing what he likes to do," I thought to myself.

Fishermen at McAvoy Yacht Harbor said George will always be missed. "He fished here all the time and had just bought his boat" they said. Can't you just see the smile on his face....!

Like I said, I didn't know George, but I can imagine his last day fishing as one filled with excitement and moments to remember. On that day George won - not the Sturgeon.

George's buddy's

A WrongWay Ski Boat...

Am I the only fisherman that has had this problem?  While fishing from the banks in the Delta has anyone else had problems with WrongWay  speedboat operators crossing your lines?  This weekend I was fishing on the bank across the way from the bait shop "TheMasterbaiter" and had problems with speedboats crossing my lines.  I had my line cut off seven times and one reel spooled and melted from the heat of my spectra spooling off so fast and not to mention got burned from both the line and spool.  

There were several times when boats would literally cross from the middle of the river to directly in front of my lines, however, this was not the case with fishing boats.  I did notice that the fishing boat operators would conscientiously move away from bank fishing line when I caught their attention. However, some speed boats did just the opposite, what's up with this?  Why do people have to be so bullyish or showoffish?  Are there any rules, regulation or even just common respect when driving a boat?  I mean come on now, when one sees people fishing on a bank common sense should tell you to move away, not towards the lines in the water.

A really concerned Fisherman...!

No need for Hooks in Florida...!

Forget sharks, alligators and sting rays. The latest Florida menace is giant leaping sturgeon.

Gainesville elementary school principal Lacy Redd, 34, was boating on the Suwannee River over the Memorial Day weekend when a sturgeon, some 5 to 6 feet long and between 130 and 150 pounds, leaped into her family's boat and knocked her out. She suffered a collapsed lung and five broken ribs.

On July 4, 19-year-old Danny Cordero of Perry was zipping along the Suwannee on a personal watercraft with his girlfriend when - WHAM! A sturgeon knocked them both in the water.

"I don't remember anything," Cordero said. "My girlfriend said it was like hitting a brick wall. She saw me lying face down in the river. I had blood all over me. It cracked my teeth and chewed up my gums.

"I get picked on pretty bad. People say: 'You got knocked down by a fish?' It's not any ordinary fish. It's a huge fish."

On Fourth of July weekend in 1999, a Gilchrist County sheriff's deputy was in a boat patrolling the river when a 106-pound, 4-foot- 6 sturgeon leaped through the boat's windshield and knocked the deputy down, Montgomery said.

"When he called in on the radio, they didn't believe him at first," Montgomery said. "He said, 'I'm serious. I need some help out here!' "

The Sheriff's Office called in a game warden. When the warden saw the bloody fish in the deputy's boat, he couldn't resist teasing.

"He said, 'Well, you know that's a federally protected fish. You're probably in big trouble for killing that fish!' "

Leaping sturgeon also have been reported in the Yellow River, near Pensacola. Larry Foshee, 54, had two sturgeon encounters there. The first time, in 1996, the sturgeon leaped in the boat and "scraped me up," said Foshee, of Pensacola.

"It was the first time I'd seen one up close and personal," Foshee said. "He was really rough."

The second time, a sturgeon leaped in front of his 21-foot boat and kept going.

"He went all the way over the boat. He tore the trolling motor on the front of the boat.

"It's a scary thing," Foshee said.

"On their backs, they have this dinosaur-looking fin. It's very sharp," said Carol Brown, who got hit by a 36-pound sturgeon about 10 years ago, and had to have plastic surgery to repair her broken nose.

"My children thought an alligator had jumped in the boat," said Brown, 50, of Lake City. "By the grace of God, I lived, because it should have broken my neck."

At the hospital in Gainesville, nurses took one look at her mashed-up face and asked what happened.

Brown's husband joked: "I can tell you she'll say 'Yes, sir' to me next time."

Abruptly, the nurses took her husband and two children into another room for questioning. But the emergency room physician looked at her wounds and declared, "She had a fish hit her in the face."

One of the few sturgeon keepsakes can be found at The Lighthouse restaurant in Trenton. In 1995, the fish leaped into a boat carrying owner Sue Nessmith and her then-husband, James. The fish knocked James down.

The Nessmiths got special permission to keep the fish, which weighed 70 pounds and was more than 5 feet long. They mounted it and hung it on the restaurant wall.

Sue Nessmith, 45, still sees leaping sturgeon on the river. And, she admits, "It makes you kind of leery from time to time."

Fishin' buddies...
I do want to let you know my process of cleaning sturgeon.  I am writing this because my technique is different compared to what is described on this site. But, I always ask, why do people pull the spinal cord out?  In addition, why do you need to slice it up the belly, and pull the guts out.  I guess you would need to if you were going for the caviar.  But, this is what I do, and I find it very simple: First, I nail a long nail, or a rail road spike through the head of the sturgeon, and hang it on a tree.  This makes it easier to work with, and fillet. Second, I use a box knife (one with an adjustable blade), and set it at the shortest setting.  This ensures that the cuts through the skin are not too
deep.  I slice the sturgeon down each side of all the spikes.  I then use a pair of pliers to pull the spikes off (They come off like buttons).  Then, using the pliers I grab the skin that's left in-between where the spikes where and pull it off.  I find it comes off
fairly easy, but sometimes I need to give it a slice or two with a knife to make sure I don't loose any precious meat.  Once the fish is skinned I leave it hanging, and simply fillet it, making sure not to cut into the guts.  Leaving it hanging makes it a lot
easier to fillet.  You have gravity on your side, and you don't have to worry about it slipping all over the counter.  I then freeze the fillets with the red fat still on.  I find the red fat easiest to get off when it is defrosting.  The red fat defrosts first, and can
at that time be cut off fairly easily. 
Mark Jones

The Sturgeon's  Caviar Death...!

The Poacher stood among the reeds cutting open the huge sturgeon, he was startled as I approached - expecting instead the law. "There's about 10 pounds here" he said, scooping the fish's black roe into a bucket along the Ural river. " I can get $250 for these eggs. I know there aren't many left, not like it used to be, but what can I do?" The poacher, a former factory worker in his mid-40s, said he has been unemployed for several years and poaching sturgeon for its lucrative caviar is the only way to sustain his family. He pointed out that the day's catch earned him 2.5 times the average monthly wage in Kazakstan and the fish's succulent meat - 40lbs - would be smoked and eaten by his family.

The Kazakstan fisherman had just caught a sevruga sturgeon, the most plentiful in the Caspian Sea. Experts say if poachers like him continue to diminish its stocks, the sevruga could soon face the same fate as the larger, rare beluga sturgeon, which has been so overfished that its roe fetches as much as $1,500 a pound on the U.S. market. Of the many species of sturgeon 13 are threatened and two are close to extinction, according to experts. 

Caviar connoisseurs have literally loved the fish roe to death, and the three commercial sturgeon stocks in the Caspian Sea that yield the prized caviar - beluga, sevruga, and osetra - have plummeted 90% since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 and poaching became widespread according to environmental groups. 

About 90% of the world's caviar comes from the Caspian Sea and the global legal trade in caviar is estimated to be $100 million a year, with illegal trade six to 10 times that amount according to experts.

Under the Soviets, the sturgeon fishery was strictly regulated and poaching was punished by a 3 yr. prison sentence. Individual countries now have to regulate the fishing and poachers often bribe the police to let them go.

Under soviet rule, all 12 branches of the Ural River delta were dredged so sturgeons cold find their way to spawning grounds. Today, because of lack of resources, only one channel is dredged for just one mile.

The fish can't get in, especially the beluga which is so big, they have to stay outside the delta, said the president of a local fishermen's union in Atyrau. That's were the poachers capture them, the ones that don't die off. 

The Ural River is the only remaining natural spawning ground of the scarce beluga - the largest of the sturgeons, which can grow up to 12', weigh 6000lbs and live for more than 100 yrs. Its adaptability had allowed it to prosper as a species for 300 million yrs, until its tasty roe became the crème de la crème of caviars and one of the world's most expensive foods. 

We used to catch 50 beluga in a single afternoon, now we hardly see them!

Russia and Iran are the main exporters of caviar, Kazakstan, however, is the world leader in beluga caviar, exporting five tons a year worth more than $10 million, mostly to the US.

Each year the five caviar producing nations along the Caspian Sea - Russia, Kazakstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Iran - submit a quota, which is usually excepted.  To date the convention on endangered species claims the five states are taking adequate steps to stem poaching and replenish stocks. 

Critics, say the battle to save the beluga sturgeon - the most endangered - has been complicated by under funded and corrupt governments and the failure of the convention to impose a ban on the trade in caviar.

As a result, three U.S. environmental groups began a campaign two years ago called Caviar Emptor, calling for a ban on international trade in beluga caviar. They are also promoting American caviar, which by some to said to be as good as Russian caviar.

Caviar Emptor recently persuaded the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to begin the lengthy process of listing beluga sturgeon as an endangered species and ban its imports. The federal government is waiting on its final decision.

Azerbaijan has broken ranks with its Caspian neighbors and is endorsing Caviar Emptor's campaign. 

If commercial catch is continued on the same level, there simply may not be enough mature beluga sturgeon to support fisheries in the future.

Caviar Emptor has also challenged a Russian study that says there are 9.6 million beluga in the Caspian Sea. A more reasonable estimate is that only 375,000 beluga swim the waters of the Caspian Sea. 

Dedicated to Fishermen & the Sturgeons they go in pursuit of.  

Sturgeon caught and location...!

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