12 - Priest Rapids Reservoir

Air Temp: 76° - 80°
Method: Bottom Fishing From Boat
Species: Sturgeon
Bait: Other
Conditions: Windy
Tackle: Hook & Bait
Time: Morning
Water Temp: 61° - 65°
Rating: 3
Views: 10343

My son and I started fishing at daylight above Desert Aire. The wind blew hard early and it rained a little on us and it was hard to fish. We had very few bites and we tried every bait combination we had. Bait of choice seemed to be Rollmop Herring. Late morning my son finally got one to take the bait and he set the hook. Only words I remember hearing was , Oh Oh, this one may be to big to keep. We threw the anchor and chased the fish for over half an hour. It took all of the line off his reel at several points and the reel had some problems so we were sure the fish would be lost. When we finally got the sturgeon to the boat it was too big to fit in our net so we struggled to get it in. When we measured the fish it was 63 inches to the fork and 69 inches to the end of the tail. Trying to get a fish that size in a cooler is quite a task, we had nothing large enough to keep it cool. We did have several black garbage bags so we went to the store and bought six bags of ice and packed it best we could on the floor of the boat and headed for home. The sturgeon weighted 65 pounds and played both of us out.


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