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FISHING FOR DINOSAURS
By: Ron Wilson
Friday November 28, 2008.... My first
experience with sturgeon was
about 30 years ago on the
Columbia River along the Oregon border.
Back then we used shad that we caught,
filleted and then soaked in a home made brine. We soon developed other
morsels for them to eat, the best was an old dead salmon that’s meat was
falling off the bones. We would scrape the meat into panty hose and
make a ball of the sticky mess then put a hook in it and tossed it out.
An old diamondback would soon come up and take the morsel. Another
big fish bait was
eel. We would cut a 6 inch section of the eel, take a huge needle and
run it through the backbone marrow with 100 pound test line. Then take
the line and tie on a single 8 to 10 ought hook. Next step was to slice
the edges of the eel lengthwise so that it had a helicopter effect as it
was hanging from the 18 foot rods we used. We fished mainly from the
bank so we used the long rods, 80 pound breakaway line on a 3 way swivel
with twine tied to one part of the swivel with a railroad spike for
weight. Sound like
big game hunting,
well it was as we landed fish up to12 feet long and got this
event on film.
Over the many years I have used a boat to
implement some of these tactics in the bay area. I started with ghost,
mud and grass shrimp with fair success. I then graduated to fresh salmon
roe from the fish I caught in the
Sacramento River.
This was by far the best bait I have ever used.
 Today
the sturgeon in our river system are now eating eels just like they did
on the Columbia. Can’t help but wonder if some of the Columbia fish have
left the ocean and came into the bay as the fishes eating habits are
changing.
After years of fishing for these
dinosaur's, I think these
prehistoric fish are mainly scavengers and opportunistic in their
diets, they'll eat whatever presents itself. Of course that's just my
opinion and yes there are baits that they prefer to eat over other baits
at times. Like when the herring spawn they like their eggs and fresh
herring fillets.
Now is the best time to head over to the
bays like Honker and Grizzly Island to try your luck. With this in mind
Harold Willey of Waterford, Ken Moore of Manteca and I recently went to
try our luck.
We launched at
Suisun in a 17 foot
Crestliner and made our way down Suisun Cut to Montezuma Slough and then
into the stopping at some of Ken's favorite spots along the way with no
luck.
After a couple hours I suggested going to
the back of Grizzly Bay into shallow water. I showed Harold where I
wanted to fish and after about 20 minutes I put a 57 incher in the boat
that fell for salmon roe.
We made a short move even shallower and
Ken put in a keeper striper. We had several more places to fish so we
moved several more times with no luck. Hindsight says we should of
stayed where the action was and been patient and let the fish come to us
instead of us going to them.
The reason we chose the Suisun area to
get to Grizzly Bay
is that if the weather got nasty it was just a short ride through
open water to the protection of the slough.
The fish are heading in from the ocean
slowly eating their way upstream in preparation for spawning next year.
They will head through the area for the next couple months so you have
plenty of time to make plans to go catch one of these old prehistoric
monsters.
My advice if you haven’t been before is
to go with a friend or go out on one of the many charter boats that ply
the inland waters. |
