Sturgeon sighting on the Caney

[thehick176]

My dad and I put the kayaks in at the dam this morning. We threw rooster tails and small rapalas as we tried to stay ahead of the mob of canoes behind us. We caught alot of Rainbows and Browns ( mostly stocker size) with a fast retrieve in the morning but had to slow it way down as the fog burned off. Best spinner color was white with silver blade and the rapalas were trout color and Dad was using his trusty silver one. Fast forwarding, we were about a 1/4 mile upstream from Happy Hollow when my Dad hollers at me and says there is a Sturgeon under his kayak. Of course I thought he was full of sh*t as I paddled over and sure enough it was sitting there on the bottom in about 4 ft of water. As I paddled up you could see the whiskers on its snout. I would have never believed him if I hadn't seen it myself. Our best length guesstimate was in the 3-4ft range.
After some quick research there has been at least two other reports of Sturgeon below Center Hill dam. Chalk it up for another great memory fishing with Dad.

[Halli]

Great report. That old Dinosaur needs to turn and run to deeper cover with the gauntlet of folks on the water.

[thehick176]

Exactly what it did! I contacted Travis Scott with TWRA up there and he said a guy caught one up at the dam a while back on a spoon fishing for trout. It was the last thing we expected to see out there.

[Alphahawk]

Glad you got to see one. Quite a few have been caught up there. I’ve seen them below dam at Nickajack....and of course in the Pond. By all reports they are doing quite well.

Regards


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[TNBronzeback]

The TWRA stocking program on them is doing amazing.
5 years ago i was bank fishing OHD on the rayon city side and some guy hauled in one probably 4' long. Ive caught 2 myself. They are an amazing fish.

[skillet]

I caught one below the dam jigging a sauger jig. Nothing but power!!! Definitely the coolest fish I’ve ever caught. Great report!!


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[lforet2002]

The Caney is full of them. Theres a kayak fisherman I know from face book named Sean and he catches 1 every time he goes.
https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/17352059_1341203435918520_2254001002785328419_n.jp g?_nc_cat=0&oh=0c219ef64997c4aad6f63a6ddfc73c87&oe=5B88E88A
https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/32887337_1760601823978677_3981660177764974592_n.jp g?_nc_cat=0&oh=17fc35321a18986226ed4f0209bd039b&oe=5B885ABA

[thehick176]

I don't know about "full of them" but there has been a lot of effort put into reintroducing them back to their native waters and it's obviously paying off. TWRA is hopeing they start seeing natural reproduction pretty soon.

[lforet2002]

Well I'm here to tell ya I go to the Caney a lot and yes it IS full of them. Maybe not as plentiful as the trout but there are a lot of sturgeon below the dam. If people aren't catching them there its because they don't know how to fish for them. I've seen Sean catch 3 of them in short hour and a half of fishing for them.

[lupanfreitag]

I saw one two weeks ago that was at least 4.5 feet long and fat as a hog. Cruising the shallows.
I agree, there is a ton of them below the Center Hill Dam.

[TNBronzeback]

Up in michigan, we would go with big treble hooks and put a dozen crawlers on it. Granted we were fishing deep for BIG fish but the same logic still applies i would assume. We always filed down the barbs though. Fun fish when they go air born!

[jaycee]

I saw one two weeks ago that was at least 4.5 feet long and fat as a hog. Cruising the shallows.

I agree, there is a ton of them below the Center Hill Dam.



I agree, there are a ton of them.

[tkwalker]

I don't know why TWRA is in such AW !! ... They are a migrating fish just like their second cousin the paddle Fish (also known as the spoon bill catfish)... Sturgeon use to be natural to our waters before the locks were built ... When that happened they could not migrate anymore (all the way to the Mississippi) except between locks and they died off. May be there is a different mindset now in the TWRA bio dept...

Why wouldn't they think they would not congregate at the dam... That is as far as they can go .... No different than the stripers ?? Check out this FTI google search archive. <'TK>< http://www.fishingtn.com/showthread.php?p=22810