Sturgeon Fishing '09

Wow! We just got back from this year's sturgeon trip in Astoria. Twelve of us went this year, which was more than in past years, but Olie with Tiki Charters likes Jeff and Sarah a lot so I think he lets us pack the boat. The boat was leaving the dock at 5:30 a.m. this year (a half hour earlier than normal) because they wanted to get us out to the fishing grounds early. Quite frankly I would have been fine with getting at the dock at 5 a.m. or even 4:30, just to get our lines wet longer.
We left Bellingham just before 5 p.m., and got to Marty's house around 5:25 to pick he and Tyson up. It took us just over 4 1/2 hours to get there, and we even took a different route than normal (usually we get off I-5 in Olympia and go through Aberdeen and Raymond to get to Astoria). We went all the way down to Longview and cut over this time. It seemed faster to us to go that way, and it helped not hitting hardly any traffic (the only slow down for us was just before Olympia).
Bright and early Saturday morning the 12 of us met at the dock, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

It was very low tide and the harbor is quite shallow, so the Captain asked that some of us move to the bow of the boat to distribute the weight better. Sarah, Eric, Steph, Jon and myself went up front and were talking and laughing about something, and all of the sudden the boat lunges forward into the dock. The Captain chuckled a little and said "oops". That woke us up! Thank goodness for the rails. The weather was somewhat typical for that part of the Columbia River throughout the day: calm times, rough times, very windy times, some sun breaks, and squalls (which anywhere on land it's called rain, but for some reason it's called a squall on the water).
Tyson took on the bet of biting off the head of an anchovie for good luck.



Jeremie caught the first fish. However, he wasn't watching his pole when it happened and I saw the bump first. The nice wife that I am, I yelled at him and let him take the pole (I should have just grabbed it because any delay in setting the hook could be the difference in catching a fish or letting the big one get away). It was too small (only about 34").

Deb pulled in the second "shaker" (they call them "shaker's" when they are too small) off of Dad's pole because he wasn't paying attention either (I actually think he dozed off for a few minutes while standing).

It got slow again for a while, so the rubber chickens made their rounds again (lucky rubber chickens get brought while fishing . . . family superstition). I had joked with everyone that "when I catch my fish, it'll be 50" long, jump out of the water, and the end of the pole will be jabbed into my gut that it'll push on my bladder and I'll pee my pants. Well, my fish wasn't 50", nor did I pee my pants (even though I really had to go), but he DID jump out of the water when I was bringing him in. He jumped at lease three feet out of the water! It was 44" long and we estimated it to be around 30-35 pounds. That was my first "keeper" (legal sized) for sturgeon. I was excited!

More fish got caught, but had to be released. Jeff caught his keeper somewhere in that mix. Ours were about the same size, but mine seemed to be thicker. Too bad we didn't catch more keepers, but it was still a whole lot of fun! You would have thought that after pulling in 10 fish, we'd have more than just two keepers.

Newcomers (and soon to be married) Steph and Jon each got to pull in their first sturgeon. Tyson, however, didn't pull one in even though his dad tried to get him to take his pole when a fish took hold of the bait.




Last year, Eric hooked a huge fish that the Captain figured was probably over 6ft. long, but after fighting it for 15 minutes, it broke off. This year, Eric went just the opposite in size.

Afterwards we went to the Rogue brewery for dinner and drinks, and than eight of us went bowling. Jeremie almost bowled 200 on our first game!


Sunday was Father's Day, and we did our traditional breakfast at Stephanie's Cabin Restaurant across the street from our motel. And after that, we all parted ways and headed home. Marty, Tyson, Jeremie and I stopped at Cabela's on the way back since neither Jeremie or myself had been there. It was cool! The animal display and the aquarium were awesome. LOTS of fish! I can't wait until next year! I'd love to go again sooner, whether it was for sturgeon, salmon or anything else. It was really great to be able to have just us on the charter.