Up to this point, water conditions have been cool and clear, far from ideal for sturgeon, but perfect for late season stripers. "Normally we're taking quite a few sturgeon by mid December, but it's off to a late start this year because of the dry conditions," explained Canevaro. "Fortunately, the striped bass have been holding in the lower end of the system and we've been catching limits or close to it for the last two months."

Just how good was the sturgeon bite last season? "On my boat alone, we landed a total of 220 keeper sturgeon and 53 oversized sturgeon between December 1 and May 1," said Canevaro. "My wife Diana landed 164 keeper sturgeon and 1 oversized fish during the same time period. Just about all those fish were caught in Montezuma Slough."

According to Canevaro, there's plenty of sturgeon in Montezuma as we speak, they just need a good shot of fresh water to get them feeding. The day I was out with Canevaro, we saw several large sturgeon break water and we also marked a lot of fish on the electronics.

We put out several different baits including eel, salmon roe, a live bullhead and fresh shad. The only bait that got any attention during the day was the fresh shad. Most of the bites were from small stripers, but we did manage to bag one keeper fish weighing 6-1/2 pounds. There's something about putting a writer on the boat that can kill any good bite. To prove the point, he bagged full limits of fish to 12 pounds the following day.

So now that it's time to concentrate on sturgeon, Canevaro said Montezuma Slough will be his first choice and he will also spend a little time fishing the Chain Islands. "I like to target clam beds in 20 to 25 feet of water in Montezuma," he explained. "You know you're on a clam bed when you start bringing them in on the end of your hooks. However, I won't fish a spot unless I see fish on the graph or jumping in the area."

As far as terminal tackle, Canevaro uses 7 foot custom wrapped G. Loomis rods and Penn reels spooled with 25 pound P-Line CXX X-Tra Strong line. "I fish an 8/0 Owner hook on 18 inches of 50 pound P-Line, than attach 6 to 8 ounces of weight on a sliding sinker," he added. "My most consistent baits are eel, salmon roe and shad. The incoming tide is normally most productive, but we catch plenty of fish on both tides."

Captain James Smith of Happy Hooker Sportfishing is also fired up about the sturgeon prospects for the coming weeks. "Up until last week, we had a lot of saltwater down here by the Mothball Fleet, but conditions are improving with the recent rains," he explained. "Another week or two of wet weather and we should have some excellent sturgeon fishing."

Smith likes to target sturgeon on the large tides. "We fish grass shrimp and eel throughout Suisun and San Pablo bays," he said. "We'll fish as shallow as 10 feet when the water is really moving and as deep as 80 feet when it slows down. The bottom and top of the tides are when we catch most of our fish."

In the mean time Smith continues to hammer the striped bass in Suisun Bay. "The striper bite was wide open on Friday," he said. "We had double and triple hook-ups on big fish and ended up with limits to 25 pounds for 18 passengers on the Happy Hooker and limits to 22 pounds for 8 passengers on the Baywatch."

Judging from what took place last season, Smith says these big rains will most likely push the stripers up into the Delta and they will turn their attention to targeting sturgeon for the rest of the winter months. With another week of wet weather in the forecast, conditions should be ideal by Christmas.

The rains should also prod big numbers of sturgeon to move up the Sacramento River to feed prior to the annual spawning run. The stretch from Rio Vista to Freeport is already yielding increasing numbers of sturgeon for anglers fishing eel and shrimp baits. The prehistoric fish should also start showing in the stretch of river from Knights Landing to Colusa soon.