Siuslaw Sturgeon: Be Careful What You Wish For

The Coast Guard issued a small craft advisory the night before our trip. We were shut down, but it was for the best. The last thing we wanted was to be stuck outside when they closed the bar. Matt suggested a trip to the Siletz Canyon. After doing the math–first light would be at 5:15am, meaning we should leave Eugene at 3:00am–my travel-worn, jet-lagged brain said “No thanks.” I countered with the suggestion of an exploratory trip to the Siuslaw estuary for sturgeon.

“Sure, why not,” Matt and Nate replied. Nate had a bunch of fly-caught shad in his freezer and I had enough heavy tackle to get us in the game. We had been tipped off by a couple of sources as to the most likely spots, and everything I had heard about the fishery made it sound exceptional: big fish and virtually no angling pressure.

We arrived at the Florence ramp at 8:00am. The summer sky was clear-blue and a light breeze came down from the Northwest. The tide was rolling in at a good clip, but the clam beds were still exposed. Plenty of incoming left to provide a few hours of fishing. As we launched Nate’s skiff, other boats were already coming back in from the ocean, having heard that the bar would be closed at noon.

Nate motored us up the river, and in a few minutes we entered a huge pool lined with tall spruce trees, bushy willows and wild roses in full bloom. I breathed deeply and savored the Oregon air. Having just returned from a week in Orlando, Florida, the perfection of home was still soaking in. Nate rifled through his gear bag, pulling out a depth finder and a bunch of wires. “Oh, no!” Nate said sounding deflated, “I left the cord at home.” Apparently all the wires and doo-dads he was holding weren’t enough to hook up the depth finder. “Don’t worry about it, Nate,” I assured him. “We don’t need it.”

Thanks to the light breeze, the Siuslaw’s currents, seams and back eddies were clearly visible on the water’s surface. All we had to do was trust our combined sixty-plus years of on-the-water experience and pick a likely spot. Nate and I surveyed the pool and agreed on the best spot almost instantly. We puttered over and pitched the anchor. One, two, three, thud. It was about twenty feet deep, just to the shore-side of the main current. I prepared some audacious baits of shad fillets, soaking each in the pungent gut-juice and blood that erupted from the fish’s swollen belly. Kersplash, kersplash, kersplash! In a few moments all our lines were resting on the bottom, ready for a giant prehistoric sturgeon to vacuum them up. Within a minute or two, each rod tip was dancing the “Pogey Dance” as sculpins and God-knows-what-else nibbled away.

I turned my back for a moment, grabbing a rich, dark breakfast beer out of the cooler, when Nate warned, “Rob, Rob…ROB!” I jerked around just in time to see my rod tip making big bounces, and then stillness and slack. I waited breathlessly, but the fish never returned. I reeled in a tightly wrapped ball of hooks and fish skin. As is customary, the pogies had tied my leader into a tangled mess–one of the many joys of bottom fishing.

Soon I was back in the water, sharing my beer with Matt and basking in the coastal sunshine. We were talking, probably joking about something, Matt and I looking upriver toward our baits, Nate looking downriver. My mouth and heart stopped mid-sentence as a GIANT sturgeon breached just 60 feet off the stern. I stuttered briefly then exploded into wild jabbering. My heart rate and blood pressure had to be off the charts. The fish showed us two-thirds of its immense body, and I estimated it’s length at around eight feet. “Nate, you are a fishy dude,” I assured. “Of all the places we could be in this long estuary, you put us directly on top of an eight foot jumper!”

Unfortunately, the following hours produced nothing but little nibbles. We moved all around the pool, then tried other pools down river. As we moved toward the ocean, the bait-thieving became oppressive. Below Cushman, as the tide slowed to high-slack, we were amazed by the efficiency of baby Dungeness crabs at devouring our shad. In sixty seconds, all that was left was skin. “Jeez, let’s get the hell out of here,” we agreed. With only an hour or so left in our fishing day, we decided to return to the scene of our only sturgeon encounter to soak our last few fillets.

We dropped anchor and splashed our baits around the boat. Matt was losing patience, writhing around on the bench seat, trying to get comfortable. His faith was gone. Nate and I held our rods, happy to feel the pecking of tiny fish, and knowing full well that we were in the zone. “C’mon, Matt,” I said. “There’s a giant fish swimming around down there!” But he wasn’t impressed. He and I reeled in to see the wasted remains of our baits. I stepped to the front of the boat for a couple of fresh fillets when Nate’s line tightened.

I saw the whole thing: big slow grabs, then moving line, then peeling line…”Set the hook lightly,” I warned. He set, and the fish took off down the river. His rig had 150 yards of 80-pound Tuff line and a short leader to match. I rushed to the bow and pulled the anchor. Matt started the outboard, hands shaking. At first Matt raced the engine in reverse, flooding water over the transom. Captain Nate was rather distressed by this. “NOT REVERSE!!!” Line peeled off the spool, and there wasn’t much left. Matt spun the boat around, the spool emptied, Nate pointed the rod at the fish and it was over. A clean break, and three stunned fishermen. Matt and I were catching our breath, and Nate was calmly grappling with the mixed emotions that come with hooking and losing the biggest fish of one’s life.

Soon we were bashing our way against the wind, back to Florence. We consoled Matt that the loss was not his fault. Such fish require a higher level of preparedness and experience than we had at the beginning of our day. But we learned a lot, and would return soon for another chance.

“I know what I’m doing on my next day off,” Nate said with a smile.

“Trout fishing?” I asked.

-RR