Sturgeon Fishing, Suisun Bay and Slough, California - Mar 22, 2014

Sturgeon Fishing, Suisun Bay and Slough, California - Mar 22, 2014

Sturgeon Fishing, Suisun Bay and Slough, California - Mar 22, 2014

Saturday morning started early as six anglers met on the dock in Vallejo, California. We were greeted by Capt’n Steve of Hook’d Up Sport Fishing and boarded the Top Gun — a 27′ Sportcraft with a 9½′ beam, powered by a 7.4-liter 454 CID Mercruiser.

I set up this trip with several coworkers. It was the second time I had been out on the bay fishing for sturgeon. My first trip was on a much smaller boat that was having engine issues, so we just stayed in the channel. There were four of us on that trip — we got one hit, pulled it aboard, and it was way too small to keep.

For this trip, we left the Vallejo Marina and headed northeast to Suisun Bay. We went under the Carquinez Bridge and up the straits, past the mothball fleet. Capt’n Steve had scouted out a spot up the slough the day before, and after checking upstream to confirm the fish were there, we set anchor on the clam beds and dropped our hooks.

It didn’t take long before we hooked our first sturgeon of the day — a shaker with a deformed tail measuring about 24 inches. A second sturgeon was hooked soon after, but it was still too short. Then we landed a third fish, brought it aboard, and took a measurement: 39.5 inches, just shy of the legal limit.

Things got exciting when we hooked two monsters at the same time. The battle to bring them both in lasted over 20 minutes.

In total, we brought two oversized fish on board (67 and 72 inches), while a third took off running and took the tackle with it. We had one keeper at 57 inches and five that were undersized — two of those were close to legal size and the others were under 24 inches. We caught most of them before 11 a.m.

Videos

Slough, California

Sturgeon fishing on Suison Bay