I caught majority of my sturgeon out of the Columbia River on squid soaked in anise. Other than that a good ole glob of night crawlers just before dark always works great too. Pickled herring works fair but don’t last long and too expensive for my liking. I caught a couple hundred a year back when I fished them a lot. Like 8 weekend trips a year with another guy along. So WE not just me. Now I catch that many incidentally during the summer. Mormon crickets and or night crawlers on the bottom. I’ve used cut bait shad and chubs as well with pretty good results.

All good advice - to understand the "why", you need to know that Sturgeon are virtually blind and they find their food by smell. That is why it's important that your bait is on the bottom and that it doesn't move around in the current. Your leaders should only be 12 to 16 inches. And don't be afraid to go up to 16 oz. for your pyramid weight. These can be big fish and you will not feel the extra weight once they are hooked. I would also re-emphasize that you do not set the hook until you feel them swimming away with your bait.

Good luck and send pictures.

Yes they do move. Another place I used to fish is Near the side of the river. With my fish finder I would look for an area where the river takes a steep drop off. I would anchor near the bottom of that drop off. They seem to follow that drop off up or down stream in my experience. I always viewed Sturgeon fishing as very relaxing especially if everything was going to crap back in the office or the boss was being a butt hole. I would relax and even have a pocket book. Also you can never tell by the bite if it is big or small. I have already told the story when fishing on the Columbia and we were being bothered by little Bullheads stealing our bait. Got so pissed I figured I would try to hook one of those little bastards. So I did set the hook. Ended up being an 8' fish that jumped into my boat up in front of the windshield. He eventually flopped back in the water and I played him about 20 minutes and got him to the boat, measured him in the water then released him. Scared the crap out of the guy I was fishing with who was sitting with his back to the windshield and he turned and saw a huge white belly and said #$@%&^$#X why didn't you tell me he was so big! I was glad he didn't jump in the boat where we were with all our tackle boxes. They would probably knock some out in the river.