Pacemaker Fishing Forum

Earlier this year I moved to WA and home is about a mile from the bank of the Columbia River a bit west of the famous Columbia River Gorge.

When I informed Ernie of my move, he encouaged me to post some fishing reports from out here.

There is good fishing here in the Columbia River and its tributaries for salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, smallmouth bass, american shad, and walleye. There is also good fishing in area lakes for trout, landlocked salmon, and muskies. I'll work on going after all of them, but this report will be about recent sturgeon trips.

I took this picture of a big sturgeon in a hatchery pond up at Bonneville Dam


I have seen that sturgeon like to jump. On my first sturgeon trip there were a couple of 5-6 footers that would come up and jump in our vicinity about every 15-20 minutes, but we only caught little ones that day, 32-36 inches (nine of them). I saw it happening again on June 9, but not as frequently.

Here's an example of a big sturgeon jumping for fun:


They sometimes jump when hooked up, here's an example:


I went with a couple other guys on a sturgeon trip with a guide on June 9. We fished in the Columbia River Gorge about 7 miles below Bonneville Dam.

First we set out to catch some american shad to use as bait. This is a HUGE run of shad here. You can catch all you want here, no limits.




We only caught three sturgeon that day but two of them were BIG.

By the way, when a big fish is hooked, you have to uncleat your anchor and leave it behind. You will be spooled if you can't follow the fish. A floating ball is attached to the anchor rope so that you can return to retrieve it once the fight is over.


I caught one close to 7 ft long which the guide estimated to weigh over 160 lbs. It took about 15 minutes to bring it in and it jumped high twice.


More to follow...

Last edited by Bob B (Jun-20-10 9:13PM)