09-12-2010, 06:00 PM
For several years, I have been wanting to find some good places to fish for sturgeon from the shore -- the closer to Utah the better. I have read reports about Auger Falls, near Twin Falls, ID. Yesterday, Kory and I decided it was time to make the long drive and give it a try.
The first challenge is to cross The Snake River. There is an old washed out bridge that is in remarkably good condition; however, one must first get onto the bridge and then secondly after walking over the river one must get off of the bridge. Someone has stacked a couple of logs against the bridge that one can use to climb the approximate eight feet to get up onto the bridge (see attached scanned picture -- warning the file is huge). The other side has a drop of about six feet that is scaleable through the use of a concrete wing.
Then the approximate hike of one mile to the fishing hole begins. The hike is relatively easy until one begins to descend down into the canyon. It is a steep narrow path along an extremely steep canyon where one hopes that one doesn't either slip or fall.
Upon reaching the hole we weren't sure where we were to fish. Placed another call to a local angler (first call helped us know where to turn off of Golf Course Road) and after describing the area he was able to direct us to the area to fish. All day long I felt like I should be wearing a PFD, just in case I fell off of the rocky cliff into The Snake River. Kory was kind enough to make the final rocky climb down next to the water to release the sturgeon (it served him right anyway because he caught all of the sturgeon except for one that he graciously let me catch on his rod).
We started fishing about 8:20 AM and we both missed several good bites. Kory started hooking some of his bites and I continued missing mine. The bites definitely slowed down as the day wore on. We had the entire hole to ourselves until a couple of anglers showed up at 3:00 PM. We left at 5:30 PM. Final count was 6 sturgeon, one bass and one squaw fish.
Lessons learned:
1) Although my current sturgeon reels work fine for fishing from a boat they are inadequate for fishing from the shore. Except for the first couple of hours, one was able to get far more bites if one could cast further out into the current. I was unable to do that with the reels that I had. Also, after making my casts, the quantity of line left on my reels would have been inadequate for turning a large sturgeon before getting spooled.
2) If one is going to use a board to wrap the line around to break loose from a snag, be sure to get far away from the rod tip -- broke off a rod tip on one of my rods.[frown]
3) Need to haul extra fishing line or extra reels just in case one breaks off with a large fish or looses line to a snag. We were repeatedly snagged in the rocks and we donated plenty of lead to the bottom (made the hike back easier because the packs were far lighter than they were when we hiked in[
]).
Another great day of fishing with Kory and I will be back to try again; next time better prepared for the conditions.
[signature]
The first challenge is to cross The Snake River. There is an old washed out bridge that is in remarkably good condition; however, one must first get onto the bridge and then secondly after walking over the river one must get off of the bridge. Someone has stacked a couple of logs against the bridge that one can use to climb the approximate eight feet to get up onto the bridge (see attached scanned picture -- warning the file is huge). The other side has a drop of about six feet that is scaleable through the use of a concrete wing.
Then the approximate hike of one mile to the fishing hole begins. The hike is relatively easy until one begins to descend down into the canyon. It is a steep narrow path along an extremely steep canyon where one hopes that one doesn't either slip or fall.
Upon reaching the hole we weren't sure where we were to fish. Placed another call to a local angler (first call helped us know where to turn off of Golf Course Road) and after describing the area he was able to direct us to the area to fish. All day long I felt like I should be wearing a PFD, just in case I fell off of the rocky cliff into The Snake River. Kory was kind enough to make the final rocky climb down next to the water to release the sturgeon (it served him right anyway because he caught all of the sturgeon except for one that he graciously let me catch on his rod).
We started fishing about 8:20 AM and we both missed several good bites. Kory started hooking some of his bites and I continued missing mine. The bites definitely slowed down as the day wore on. We had the entire hole to ourselves until a couple of anglers showed up at 3:00 PM. We left at 5:30 PM. Final count was 6 sturgeon, one bass and one squaw fish.
Lessons learned:
1) Although my current sturgeon reels work fine for fishing from a boat they are inadequate for fishing from the shore. Except for the first couple of hours, one was able to get far more bites if one could cast further out into the current. I was unable to do that with the reels that I had. Also, after making my casts, the quantity of line left on my reels would have been inadequate for turning a large sturgeon before getting spooled.
2) If one is going to use a board to wrap the line around to break loose from a snag, be sure to get far away from the rod tip -- broke off a rod tip on one of my rods.[frown]
3) Need to haul extra fishing line or extra reels just in case one breaks off with a large fish or looses line to a snag. We were repeatedly snagged in the rocks and we donated plenty of lead to the bottom (made the hike back easier because the packs were far lighter than they were when we hiked in[
]). Another great day of fishing with Kory and I will be back to try again; next time better prepared for the conditions.
[signature]