Sturgeon fishing in Oregon

Retention or catch-and-release

One of the first things to consider when planning a sturgeon trip is whether you want to take a fish home with you.

• During "retention seasons" anglers can keep one fish a day and two a year (statewide) – within prescribed size categories. Popular retention seasons on the Columbia River above Bonneville Dam have fairly small harvest quotas so seasons are very short.
• "Catch-and-release" fishing is allowed in most locations year-round. Anglers can enjoy the same excitement of hooking and landing a hard-fighting fish—but they must release the fish when the fight is over.

Sturgeon fishing in Columbia and Willamette rivers

The lower Columbia and Willamette rivers support the most productive white sturgeon population in the world—though opportunities to keep a fish are limited as the population continues to rebuild. Fish in the lower Columbia and lower Willamette can move back and forth between the two rivers and are managed together. Some things to know about sturgeon fishing in these rivers:

• For gear, fish a large enough weight to hold your bait on the bottom. Popular baits include sand shrimp, nightcrawlers, smelt, pickled herring (rollmop), squid, and anchovy. Single point, barbless hooks are required. During the winter, sturgeon seem to hold in deeper areas and are less active. As water temperatures warm, fish will become more active and move to shallower water in search of food.
• Slot size limits prescribe the minimum and maximum length for a fish you can keep during retention seasons. They have been in place since the 1950s and help protect juvenile and breeding-size fish (6-feet and larger). See regulations for size limits. Fork length is measured in a straight line from the tip of the nose to the fork in the caudal fin (tail) with the fish laying on its side on a flat surface, with the tape measure/ruler positioned flat under the fish. 
• Anglers need a fishing license and Combined Angling Tag to fish for sturgeon, even for catch-and-release fisheries, plus the Columbia River Basin Endorsement when fishing in the Columbia and Willamette systems.

NOTE: There are also catch-and-release fisheries in other Columbia River tributaries and in the Northwest and Willamette zones and on the Rogue and Umpqua rivers in Southwest Zone, but these are lesser opportunities than the Columbia and Willamette.

Columbia River

Catch-and-release open year-round

Catch-and-release sturgeon fishing in the Columbia is an often overlooked opportunity. It's open year-round except for some seasonal closures May 1-Aug. 31 in sensitive areas to help protect spawning fish. (See the Fishing regulation booklet for details.)

So, if you miss the short sturgeon retention seasons (see below) you can still enjoy sturgeon fishing as a fun and challenging activity. There is a relatively productive fishery from June to July around Astoria. In 2024, there were about 2,200 catch-and-release trips in the lower Columbia from March-October. The fishery averaged 2-3 sturgeon released per trip.

Brief retentions seasons above Bonneville open Jan. 1

For the foreseeable future, sturgeon retention on the Columbia will be limited to brief seasons in the river upstream of Bonneville Dam. These fisheries have fairly small harvest quotas so seasons are very short and can last just a few days in Bonneville and The Dalles pools—especially when angler effort is high and when water temperature, weather, and on-the-water conditions are favorable.

For example, retention seasons in Bonneville Pool and The Dalles Pool lasted just two and four days, respectively, in 2024. This is despite efforts by fishery managers to extend the fishery later into the year by shifting to a days-per-week approach (which also allows time to assess and react to catch rates in real time). Only the John Day Pool tends to remain open past January.

Retention seasons are announced around November; see 2025 seasons. Always check the fishing regulation update page before you fish as seasons can close quickly once harvest guidelines are met.

Starting in 2026, managers will be looking for alternative ways to offer a meaningful number of retention days, including possibly not starting the season on the Jan. 1 holiday. Expect a public meeting in late October or early November 2025 to consider retention fisheries in 2026 (subscribe to Columbia River Fact Sheets or Action Notices to get notified about the meeting).

Legal size in Bonneville Pool is different

The legal size (e.g. keeper size) in Bonneville Pool is 38-inch minimum and 54-inch maximum fork length, compared to a 43-inch minimum in all other pools and in the Willamette River.

This is due to the population size structure and growth rates observed in Bonneville Pool. There just aren't many fish in the 43-54 size slot in this population.

Lower Columbia retention closed for the foreseeable future

Fishery managers don't expect to open sturgeon retention in the lower Columbia River until ongoing recruitment issues resolve and the population rebuilds.

The lower river used to be an extremely popular sturgeon fishery. But abundance of juvenile fish has declined since 2010, along with the number of legal-size fish needed to sustain a retention fishery. Biologists estimate overall sturgeon numbers below Bonneville Dam have declined by nearly 80 percent since 2010.

Fishing did not cause this decline. Rather, evidence suggests fewer adult white sturgeon are spawning successfully now than they were 15 years ago. Potential reasons include:

• Predation, mainly by Steller sea lions, which are now being lethally removed at Bonneville Dam and Willamette Falls.
• The presence of marine mammals pushing sturgeon out of their preferred spawning areas.
• Changes in food sources (fish and other shellfish).
• Contaminants impacting reproductive potential.

However, since white sturgeon can go back and forth between freshwater and the ocean, it's possible they are not being observed in the lower river because they are in coastal estuaries or elsewhere.

ODFW's sturgeon research program, in partnership with WDFW, monitors population status in the Columbia River and is working to understand issues related to recruitment and to improve them.

Willamette River

Catch-and-release year-round

Catch-and-release fishing is allowed all year both above and below Willamette Falls in Oregon City. There is a relatively big fishery beginning in the fall months and continuing into the spring on the lower Willamette. In 2024, there were about 1,700 sturgeon angler trips from March-June averaging 2-3 sturgeon released per trip.

Retention allowed in upper river

Sturgeon retention is allowed year-round above Willamette Falls upstream to the mouth of the Coast Fork, though angler interest and harvest is much lower than in the Columbia River reservoirs.

Factors that complicate sturgeon fisheries management

Unlike salmon and steelhead that live for 3-5 years, sturgeon can live to be 100 years old and don't reach sexual maturity until they are about 25 years old or about 6-feet long.

Because sturgeon live so long, management actions taken today can have an impact for decades to come and the impacts of these decisions may not be apparent for a decade or more. Data gaps exist and fishery managers continue to seek resources to investigate and address recruitment problems and other issues facing sturgeon.

A known issue is that sturgeon need certain conditions for spawning and, like other native fish populations, dams conflict with those needs. Sturgeon are broadcast spawners, which means the females do not lay eggs in a gravel nest. Instead, males and females get near each other and release eggs and sperm that mix together in the water current. Eggs are extremely sensitive and need certain conditions to survive, including the right substrate to settle on and the right water velocity, temperature, and turbidity. Sturgeon can wait for these ideal conditions to spawn.

Spawning can be stressful for females in particular as they expend so much energy to produce and mature eggs in their body cavity. Too much stress and a female may not spawn but just reabsorb eggs. When this happens, it will be 3-5 years, or more, before the fish attempts to spawn again.

Several sturgeon spawning sanctuaries have been created on the Columbia River to help protect spawning females. No sturgeon fishing is allowed in these areas from May 1 to Aug. 31. See the fishing regulations for details.

Despite some concerning trends, it's worth remembering that sturgeon have been around since dinosaurs roamed the earth during the Jurassic Period (100-200 million years ago). Populations in the Columbia and Willamette rivers are still well above conservation thresholds and the Columbia River system remains a stronghold for this species.