Home in California!

I grew up in the bay area of Northern California. The fishing there is outstanding. One day you can be fishing for trout in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada's and the next for leopard shark on the flats of San Francisco Bay. I started fishing very young, thus many of these pictures will be of a very young me. 

STURGEON

White Sturgeon are an ugly, hard-headed, armored, prehistoric type fish. Although they are ugly, they are hard fighting, many times acrobatic, and good-eating. Like sharks, they have no bones, and are good eating when cooked a variety of ways. They are bottom feeders, thus a wire "sturgeon rig" with two kahle style hooks should be used, fished on the bottom. Sometimes 8-10 ounces of weight may be needed to keep the bait on the bottom. The wire leader is needed to keep the line from getting cut on one of the fishes many armored plates you see running along the sides. Be very careful when handling small sturgeon, as the plates wear down over time, but are still very sharp on small fish and can cut your hand very quickly. I still remember the first sturgeon my dad every caught and how he cut his hand grabbing the fish. I learned my lesson from him! Unlike myself, my father fishes primarily for sturgeon, and does quite well. I like to fish for everything, so he has caught more and bigger sturgeon already than I probably ever will.

Sturgeon will take a variety of baits, thus many are caught "accidentally" while targeting other species. The best baits I have found are Grass Shrimp, cut threadfin shad, ghost shrimp, or mud shrimp, in that order. They have also been known to eat clams, mudsuckers, bullheads, and anchovies. Sturgeon are not picky. I have yet to ever hear of one actually eating a lure though, they feed primarily off smell.

A couple of nice stripers that I caught on the Sacramento River.