February rain kept folks off the pier, so only 104 anglers went fishing this month.  Those brave souls landed 52 Perch, 40 Bass, 13 sharks, 2 smelt, and 2 Sturgeon.  No Halibut or Rays were reported, but several anglers reported catching crab.  That’s 109 fish or about 1 fish per trip.

The water is cold and sweet at around 54F and 1.3% salt.  The rains that kept people away also swelled the Sacramento River and filled San Pablo Bay with fresh water.  This time of year, we have very high tides, so when the tide goes out, the ebb flow is strong.  All that water flushed food out of the San Pablo Bay down past our club, along with Sturgeon chasing that food.  Anglers on the pier caught several of those Sturgeon while bottom fishing for Bass and Butts.

White Sturgeon are the species we usually see under our pier.  They are homebodies, most staying in the same area their entire life.  They can live to 100 years and grow to 20 feet long and almost 1,000 pounds in some areas.  The record in San Pablo Bay was 468 pounds caught in 1983.  Sturgeon were swimming in the ocean before dinosaurs roamed the earth, and they look like it, too.  They don’t have scales but instead have bony diamond-shaped “Scutes” on their back and sides.  They have whiskers or “Barbels” around the mouth to feel for food on the bottom.  They also have electrical receptors in their snout so they can sense muscle movement by nearby prey.  Their sense of smell is acute; they can smell food from over a mile away.  They use their retractable tube mouth to vacuum up their prey.  Inside their mouths are bony plates that feel like a carpenter’s rasp that are used to grind up crabs and clams.  Since they feed in murky water, vision is not important, so their eyes are tiny and poorly developed.  Sturgeon are protected, so if you land one, admire the design that has worked so well for millions of years and then toss it back.