August 27- 28, 2008
My brother Bill has been on the front line facing the challenge of this very difficult real estate market and really needed a break…. Sounds like a good rationale, ‘err I mean reason for me to plan a fishing trip!
Bill and I have previously had success on bait for tarpon in San Juan, alligator gar in Texas, and sharks on Sanibel Island--
A little web surfing brought me to this video on youtube:
You tube video-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYNd0oDD114&feature=related
As a young boy I had a Disney book about the tale of Hiawatha and the Giant sturgeon, based on Longfellow’s poem about Hiawatha. The concept of a giant fresh-water fish towing the great Hiawatha in his canoe was too cool for me.
A very unique fish- check Wikipedia-
So Giant Sturgeon sounded right up my alley!
A little research led me to Capt. Dennis Hull, who fishes the Colombia and Williamette Rivers for Giant Sturgeon, keeper sturgeon, Salmon, and steelhead- www.NWFish.com
Check out his blog there. I contacted Dennis and booked two days of fishing the end of August.
What a great choice! We met Dennis at the dock—his boat newly painted, clean, efficient, all the riggings…. More important, the guy just plain knew his S**t.
He told us they brought several 6 to 10 footers to the boat the day before—to which we chuckled and thought we just might have heard that “shoulda been here yesterday stuff “ before. Twenty minutes later we were a mile upstream, baits in the water, eagerly watching our line tips. Dennis complained the action was slow as a half hour went by, then some major tugging started on the left rod, which was softly slipped from the holder, walked to the stern, then pow – a major pull to set the hook. Battle on!
Dennis released the boat from the anchor float and started up his 8 HP trolling motor to follow the fish—line screamed from the reel and the 80 lb. rod bent like a willow! Dennis had the drags cranked down to almost dead tight, and I levered all my weight and strength, pumping and reeling furiously for the first fifteen minutes… before I realized I was expending way too much energy too quickly… this was going to be a marathon, no a sprint!
Bill and I gaped as the giant sturgeon ran several hundred yards and decided to leap fully from the water; it was unimaginable that a fish so large could be so acrobatic!
Forty-five minutes or so later – with superb boat jockeying by Capt. Dennis, we had the fish at the boat, my hands in its rubbery, toothless mouth, as we measured it up around 10’ along side the boat.
In the U.S. it’s illegal to pull the fish’s head from the water, or to get in the water with the—length and girth estimates the fish around 450 lbs! I was ready for a deep tissue massage and an oxygen tent!
Less than 20 minutes later, Bill was into his first giant—a magnificent sturgeon which proceeded to leap three times in a row, then once more on the way to the boat—measured up by the skillful and lucky angler Bill in 10 minutes! Figures the younger strong guy gets the fish that wears itself out.
Fighting these fish is like tying a fishing line to a young steer and reeling it in— then when you finally get it to the boat, it proceeds to circle, dive under and otherwise attempt to tangle and cut off your line (a six foot piece of braided nylon mason’s line).
We have pictures of the five fish we caught day one, and the 6th on the second day at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/bciliberto/PortlandSturgeon82708#
The largest nearly 13’ long and estimated 700 lb, we think we hauled over 3,000 lbs. of sturgeon in the two days, on a river surrounded by world class beauty!
Many thanks to Capt. Dennis for a remarkable and memorable trip in the Colombia Gorge!
