Summer sturgeon fishing

[Cast A Way]

Any thoughts about fishing the Rainy River in August. Water low? Would like to try sturgeon fishing, but not sure about the river conditions/where to camp or stay. Thanks.

[maxpower17]

I was hoping to see a response to this as well. Hope somebody chimes in.............................

[Sturg]

I've been going up the end of July the past 5 years to fish sturgeon. I stay at the Falls motel. We usually get at least one fish over 40 lbs. We fish Fri to Sun below the dam and down by the Littlefork. Two of us usually land between 20 to 40 sturgeon and only encounter a few boats even fishing for them. We also catch many other species fishing for sturgeon. It has always been a good summer trip for us. All the motels fill on Friday because of people going to Canada. If you plan on being there over weekend, make reservation for Fridays or you may not find a place.

[rattleL]

Sturg what tactics do you usually use to catch these monsters...simple crawler and weight? and fish teh main river channel or is structure more important. Curious?

[Sturg]

We use typical sturgeon gear and tactics. We do like to add some sucker meat or shiner minnow to 2 or 3 crawlers on the hook. If the water is high, fish seams next to the bank or a fish the rock formations. Sturgeon are all over the river and you will see them jump all day long. We usually anchor above a drop or hole and fish the deeper water. I've seen people catch sturgeon off the boat landing dock in International Falls. They also catch walleyes and smallmouth bass off the dock. We've had good luck in the morning between 7:00 and 9:00 and in the afternnons between 4:00 and 7:00. If you fish the Littlefork after dark the mosquitos are unbelievably thick. We usually quit before dark.

Good luck!

[maxpower17]

Any recent sturgeon activity to report? I'm looking to scratch an itch...

Thinking of heading to Franz Jevne or Nelson Park after the shutdown is over.

[fishuhalik]

I'm heading out there this weekend, I'll post a report when I get back

[fishuhalik]

We did ok, not the greatest but we still had fun. Ended up with 12 stugies, alot of which were little guys, 6 walleyes, 20 big suckers, and a smallie. I'll tell ya what, it was definitely different fishing for sturgies in 90 degrees, I'm used to fishing for 'em in the early spring and late fall. It was kind of a special day, being that it was my bday and my bro-in-law was in from north carolina and has never caught a big fish before!

One thing was for sure, they were biting LIGHT!!! Every time all we'd feel maybe 1 or 2 taps, and if we didn't reel up on 'em right away they were gone. We probably missed 4x as many fish as we caught. And if any of you recognize where we were fishing, please do me the favor of keeping it to yourself. Enjoy the pics!

biggest of the trip. not huge but still fun! 49"

And can anyone tell me what kinda sucker this is? We got about a dozen of 'em, and they were huge, biggest suckers I've ever seen. They were between 4lbs and 6lbs 14oz

[fiskyknut]

Neat report. The heat musta been brutal. The bridge gives it away, did you tie right up to the other one!! I catch alot of Bass thru that bit and down a half mile or so in late May and into June.

That Sucker is a Silver Redhorse, a few state record Silvers have came from the Rainy and the Bigfork trib over the past dozen years. 9-15 is current and was caught outta the Bigfork.

fiskyknut

[fishuhalik]

The only fish we got by the bridge was that sucker. They were biting pretty good in the morning, died off for a while so we did some searching, then moved back to the same spot we got 'em earlier and when some clouds moved through they started biting again. Good try though fisky!

Oh, and here's what 13 hours in the sun with your feet up will do to ya! I put sunscreen on 5 times, only to find out at 4:00 that it expired in '04. My dad needs to learn to throw stuff away. It might be a little awkward wearing sandles for a little while...