One of my favorite fish to catch is sturgeon, and those of us in the Kennebacasis Valley are blessed to have world class sturgeon fishing grounds right in our back yard. The Saint John / Kennebacasiss River systems are one of the few river systems on the East Coast of North America, and the only one in Canada where shortnose sturgeon come to spawn and winter. While in many places sturgeon fishing is simply not allowed, here we are allowed to fish them, though they have to be 120 cm in length in order to be kept. A sturgeon that long could be 30 - 60 years old! The 54 inch sturgeon I landed (and released) in the Spring may well have been over 60 years old!
Now that we are into Fall and the temps are starting to drop, the sturgeon are going to start showing up in greater numbers in our rivers and start to become more active feeders. That means, of course, sturgeon fishing should start to heat up anytime now!
I've been out fishing in sturgeon alley the past few weeks looking for a sign, but have had limited success. Last week I landed a couple, and Matt from the Greater Saint John Kayak Anglers have landed a few (including 2 yesterday), but they are still pretty hard to come by. I gave it a shot for about 4 hours last night and managed to catch 5 species (white perch, yellow perch, eel, cat fish, tommy cod) but no sign of a sturgeon.
Last week of course I landed 2 sturgeon plus had an amazing suprise adventure with a 38" fat striper, but again, that took several hours. I'm hoping to see a much better rate of success before I declare sturgeon season officially on!
With the sturgeon derby around the corner on Oct 5th, I'm hoping for a stronger sign of success soon. Note, traditionally, I've found the hours directly before and after high slack tide to offer the best sturgeon fishing and I've not been able to get out in those hours recently. Friday evening though, high slack tide should be around 7:30 - 8:00 PM at sturgeon alley, so I'll be there in prime fishing time hoping for the best!
Have you gotten out and had some success fishing sturgeon in kayak this fall? If so, and you have some good pictures you'd like to share, send them to me (joetilley76@hotmail.com) and I'll post them on the blog!
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