It was the best 
of times and it was the worst [frown] of times. Randy (N.E.T.O.) and I headed north Wednesday morning about 5:20 AM. Had the first opportunity of the trip when we had a tire blowout on the boat trailer. What are the odds that one would have a tire blow out on the same stretch of freeway less than 100 yards from where the last, and only time, a tire blew out on that trailer back on September 13, 2006? Bizarro world! We then had to make a small detour and we headed for Mountain Home to buy two new boat tires. No problem, Randy has his fancy talking GPS with him and he was able to locate a tire shop on there and the nice computer-generated lady was more than willing to give us turn-by-turn directions to the shop. Only problem was that she was directing us out into the country several miles away from the actual location of the shop. We ignored the nice lady and found the shop the old fashion way – keep driving around until one finds it. Following the advice of the young man at the tire shop I decided to go with radial tires this time. The guy mounting the tires felt the rim was damaged too much to safely use, but knowing that it is nearly impossible to find a matching rim for that trailer I talked him into mounting the spare on that rim and away we went with $170 spent for two new tires.
Got camp set up and got to fishing several hours later than planned at 3:00 PM. Randy caught about a 5 footer (he has the exact measurements) shortly after we started fishing. I told him that was great for him to catch the first one, so that I could now start fishing. I also told him that now he had caught a small one he could now catch a big one. He couldn’t imagine catching anything larger than the first one, and he was surprised at how hard that fish could fight. Little did he know then that he would catch many larger fish and in fact that he would catch the three largest fish of the trip. The next opportunity (but not anything major) was my watch quit running at 7:10 PM. Although I glanced at my watch every few minutes, it never even occurred to me that I was seeing the same time (halfeimers maybe?) every time I looked at the back of my wrist, until it almost started to get dark.
Set the alarm clock to get out on the water at the crack of dawn and was surprised that it was lighter than we expected when we left camp (realized when I got home that the time on my alarm clock was one hour early –LOL). By getting out early we only caught one fish in the first half hour and then it shut down for a couple hours. It ended up being a strange trip – very little early or late day action – with the vast majority of our sturgeon being caught between about 1:00 and 3:00 PM. We were running low on bait so we decided to take a bait-run in the late afternoon. After buying a couple of jars of herring and some more crawlers we decided to have a nice meal at the local diner. During this time it rained some and got quite windy. Got back to camp only to find that a major wind and rainstorm had come through camp and my tent was destroyed and my sleeping bag was soaked. I had an emergency blanket so I spent the final two nights sleeping in the Suburban. We decided to head out for some evening fishing and I am extremely grateful that we did. We spent about 15 minutes bailing the water out of the boat that I thought had come in from the rain. Randy decided to bail out some additional water while we were heading to our fishing hole. I noticed that the boat was sluggish and then Randy noticed a geyser coming up from the floor at about the middle of my boat. We got back to camp as quickly as we could get there and got the boat on the trailer. I have no idea how many gallons of water drained from that boat, but it was several and this is from a boat that I usually get two or three drops of water from when I pull the plug after a day of fishing. We found a hole in the bottom of the boat approximately a foot long! The wind had bashed the boat against the rocks during the strong wind. Attached are some pictures of two areas of the boat that did not leak and still need to be repaired. There is just a paved ramp and no docks. Fortunately, I always carry a patch kit with me and so Randy mixed it up and applied the patch and we went to bed with hopes that it would hold. It ended up buying us two more days of fishing with little if any leaking.
I managed to generate some more excitement for us on the drive home. I knew the gas gauge was showing that we were getting low on gas, and I was planning on stopping at the Flying J at the Brigham City exit. The gauge was in the red zone as I signaled and turned off of the freeway. Just as I started up the ramp the Suburban died! I looked up and saw a string of cars coming from Brigham City and turning south onto the freeway. I was hoping that none of them planned on heading straight through to the Flying J. Randy was suggesting that I turn on the flashers, but I was too busy concentrating on driving a vehicle in neutral without power steering or power brakes. It looked like all of the cars planned on turning, so I just ignored the stop sign and rolled on through and started downhill towards Flying J. It looked like there was a chance I could keep moving by turning right and then left into Flying J. Luck was still on our side because there was also an opening at a pump. What a relief when I was able to continue rolling to the side of the pump and get it stopped by pushing hard on the brake pedal!
Now to the fishing report. It was a little slow – we only caught 41 sturgeon. Nothing large this trip – Randy caught the largest at 92 inches (approximately 235 pounds) and he also caught one that went 89 inches that was a much heavier fish than the 92 incher.
We were catching several in the mid to upper 30 inch range and I was sure tempted to try to catch one on my trout rod and 8 pound test line. They fight so hard that I was uncertain if I would even be able to land one of that size on that size of tackle without resorting to following it with the boat, and also I didn’t know how to keep a much larger sturgeon from taking the bait.
It is truly an amazing experience of getting a bite and not knowing if one is going to catch a 3 or 9 foot fish. It also almost defies description to have something hooked that is pulling so hard that when a large one decides to dive that I have resorted to putting my handle below the side of the boat and resting the rod on the top of the boat so that I can get enough leverage to hold onto the rod. It also gets one’s heart pounding to hook a fish on the bottom in 45 feet of water only to have it shoot for the surface and jump with its head shaking and tail flopping trying to shake the hook.
A trip that I shall treasure forever and I had the pleasure of enjoying it with someone who is always a pleasure to fish wish and one heck of a nice guy.
it sounds like you had one of those crazy trips. its not so bad when a guy can land a couple of fish to even out the bad. that hole in your boat is pretty nasty!! was that a pic after you patched it? if so ill have to get me some of that miracle paste. thats the chances we take when we dont want to camp in a campground, i cant stand them myself its like leaving the city to go to another city. nice fish and tight lines.
Nice job sorelipping all my fish Kent. 
Sorry I couldn’t get down to see you guys. It just wasn’t in the cards with me having houseguests and all.
I was worried about you when that storm rolled through. It was a doozie. Glad you weren’t hurt. Those can literally be killers. I’ve seen branches as thick as my leg snap and fly 20 yards in thise wind storms. I had to run from Cove Arm to the launch in 5 foot waves once because a storm snuck up on us. Scary stuff.
**Sounds like another one of your epic adventures. Glad to see that you were able to make the repairs on the boat and get into some more fish. **
I can’t add much to Kent’s excellent and detailed report as he pretty much covered all the highlights. What I will say (as a first time Sturgeon fisherman) is that I had NO IDEA what I was in for! This is true North American big game sport fishing at its best! These fish are pole bending, line stripping, drag pulling, air jumping inland Sharks!
I caught my very first Sturgeon shortly after casting out the first pole, and when we finally got it to the boat about 30 minutes later to measure and release it, I was pretty sure I had just caught the biggest fish in the whole lake. It was just over 5 feet long. (Exact measurements are in the car out in the garage…and I’m too tired to go get it at the moment…) I was trying to catch my breath, sweating from head to toe and I was having muscle spasms in my back and couldn’t feel some of my fingers from holding onto the rod so tightly. Kent was smiling and simply said “Now you need to catch a BIG one!” It was simply an undescribable experience. And we had 41 of those experiences during this trip! I finally did end up catching some bigger ones, and each time I was astonished at how powerful these fish are. And just when you think they are done fighting, out goes your drag again, and you are simply holding on for a ride until the fish tires! It is quite a choreography when a fish is on. With only two of us, each time a fish was hooked, the other fisherman reeled in the other 3 reels and then released the anchor. It is even funner when BOTH of us had fish on at the same time (which did happen at least twice), and fortunately for us (and I mean this sincerely), they were never two BIG fish at the same time! It is also a challenge to get a big fish up next to the boat just to release it…let alone take a picture of it! Idaho regulations state that you can never even remove the fish from the water (like we could anyway even if we tried!), so it was difficult to take good pictures…and they don’t do justice to these fish. We caught one 92 incher and I’m sure that if photographed next to Kents boat from another boat, you might get a good idea at how big these fish really are.
Kents knowledge of these fish and his equipment is top notch. We were catching fish while others around us were not. His boat ran great the whole time, which is set up perfectly for this type of fishing, and out of the 41 fish caught we never once had a single equipment failure or breakoff. These rods are an inch in diameter, with an ocean going levelwind reel, spooled with 80 lb. test line. These fish are just unbelieveably strong. My back is still very very sore!
Kent let me take the lead on the fish count for the first part of the trip, but then took me to school the last half and showed me how to catch them. He truly knows these fish. We had quite a few laughs while out fishing and I’m certain we both have many fish stories we will be telling for a long time. Kent is wonderful company and is a pleasure to camp, fish and spend time with and I had a truly enjoyable experience. The whole trip was enjoyable, even the few mini mis-adventures that we had! I look forward to fishing with you again Kent, I had a GREAT time!
I know I’m forgetting a ton of details that I wanted to be sure and write down, so I’m sure I’ll be editing this post, but in the meantime, here are a few more pictures that I took of our trip.
Thanks again Kent, and I’m looking forward to next year if it works out!
[indent]Great report and terrific pics. You guys did very good catching that many fish. Thanks for sharing.
[/indent]
that hole in your boat is pretty nasty!! was that a pic after you patched it?
Those weren’t pictures of the place that leaked and was repaired. It was damage done at the same time the hole was made.
That picture labeled QuickDraw McGraw, showing me holding both rods, was because I was getting bites on both rods at the same time. The second time we caught doubles we were getting simultaneous bites on all four rods!
I tried to get Randy to try to hook the fish that was biting my rod, but for some strange reason he thought that us having two sturgeon hooked at the same time was enough. Sturgeon travel in schools and there must have been a massive school passing through.
Wow, four sturgeon on at the same time. I could not even imagine what a mess that would have been if they had all been hooked. I’ve done it with small wipers and got them all in but sturgeon especially if they were big ones would have been a battle of a life time[;)].
Kent,
I have a photo of my tent in the same shape at that same location. I seem to recall sleeping in that Suburban too. Sounds like a good trip.
What a remarkable feat! 41 fish, it’s almost unbelievable. Congratulations to both of you for an extraordinary accomplishment.
I need to figure out a way to get up there. Again…congratulations.
Thanks. I was shocked that we caught that many. My previous best trip was 25 sturgeon and that was with three anglers.
Wow! what a fantastic trip and report. Randy, this is your year for catching BIG fish for the FIRST time.
Fishing under the tutorage of Kent is obviously very good.
Well done guys. Lots of memories.
Last week I went through Bonneville dam and checked out the sturgeon there at the hatchery. Were you fishing on the Columbia river or the snake? Can I come with you next time? That is awesome and congradulations is in hand. Sweet trip. You must know what your doing.
We were fishing on The Snake River in Idaho. A general invite was posted for this trip and with the short notice I never got any takers (many wanted to go but couldn’t fit it into their schedule). If you want to be considered for future trips send your contact information to me in a PM.
Kent,
Your report reads like a novel! Sorry you had so many problems on the trip, but it is obvious that you also had a great fishing experience. I am beginning to feel like I might want to try fishing for the sturgeon. Great report and great pictures.
Lloyd, you would be welcome to tag along sometime (if interested send me a PM or an email), but be prepared to experience some pain trying to reel in these fish. They fight like nothing else you have ever hooked.
What a fish story! What is a fishing road trip with out breaking a few things. Looks like the fishing was well worth the challenges getting them. Were they spread out on that stretch of river or stacked up in smaller areas? Were there many crappies floating around yet? I would love to make a run but am just tied up with working. Thanks for the pictures too. Nice shots.
We fished five different locations and caught sturgeon at 4 of them – so I would say they were spread out. We concentrated most on one location but who knows how many we would have caught at the other locations had we spent more time at those holes. We tried to catch some crappie near Crane Falls, but there were none to be had. Two guys camped next to us said that they had to motor all the way down by the dam to catch a few of them for catfish bait. We never saw any crappie floating – just a few carp floaters, but we see them every trip.
This post is a little late, but I saw first hand Kent and Randy catching all of those sturgeon on Friday. I was down stream a ways and couldn’t believe how good they were doing and we weren’t even getting a bite. Finally after the 4th or 5th fish, Kent did something that shall bring the grace of fishing diety on him forever. He motored over to us, and invited us to move our boat into the exact location where he was catching all the fish. At first I thought he was kidding, but then I realized he was serious. We graciously took him up on the offer and proceeded to catch 6 sturgeon the rest of the day. It was awesome! Thank you Kent and Randy!!! Hopefully someday I’ll be able to return the favor!
Brady