Fishing Forum

In case anyone on here hasn't realized it yet, I love to fish for and catch sturgeon, and I enjoy watching others catch these huge fish.

Yesterday, I took David and his 17-year-old son on a one-day sturgeon outing.  We had a few adventures (tailpipe fell off of my barely-broken-in Armada  and we had to follow the last and largest sturgeon and found some rocks with the prop).  

I was happy to see the teenager hook the first sturgeon.  He gave up his sturgeoninity on a 3'8" sturgeon.  We managed to land a total of 13 (very unlucky) sturgeon ranging in length from ~2' to 7'4".  The youngster caught the largest sturgeon and also caught the second largest fish at 6'10"! 

The biggest frustration was we had 19 or 20 sturgeon come unhooked, and several of them were large fish.  It is not uncommon to have a few get off (the law requires one fish with barbless hooks), but to lose that many sturgeon was a crazy experience.  I lost my first 4 (I lost a total of 6).  My first 4 were hooked on some new fligs that I had made and I decided my problem was that I needed to shorten the float so that more of the hook was exposed.  I tried that and that seemed to make a huge difference.  I seemed to get more bites on the flig, which was a pleasant surprise. I checked all of the hooks and they were sharp, so that wasn't the issue.

I had a great time with David and his son and I can't wait for my next sturgeon adventure.

"The biggest frustration was we had 19 or 20 sturgeon come unhooked".
Maybe their mouths have so many hook holes that it is hard for the barbless hooks to stay attached. LOL You have been doing great up there fishing , but not so good with equipment. Put a new exhaust on the Armada and it will be good for another 300k.

(05-13-2023, 10:14 PM)BURLEY Wrote: [ -> ]Put a new exhaust on the Armada and it will be good for another 300k.

The muffler was shot, and the tailpipe was so thin that it couldn't be welded, so I had the muffler removed and a new tailpipe installed ($268.98).  I feel like a teenager again when I drive it.  Because both catalytic converters are bad, I will only be using the Armada for a few more months (License plate expires the end of October) before donating it to the Kidney Foundation.  It is really frustrating, because it is just barely broken in with only 298,225 miles on it!