THE STURGEON GENERAL : THESE FISH ARE DIFFERENT; SO ARE THE FOLKS WHO TRY TO CATCH THEM.

Byline: Brett Pauly

You know you're in sturgeon country when you see heads of the prehistoric bottom feeders mounted on fence posts along country roads like so many gladiator trophies.

Bizarre? Without question.

But wait, it gets stranger when you consider the odd bait, setups and hours these Sacramento River anglers keep in pursuit of a baffling creature that never made it onto the same evolutionary track as its gilled brethren.

These hardy, eccentric souls fish under the cloak of darkness with 100-plus-pound-test line and shrimp wrapped in panty hose, sewing thread and some of the rudest-smelling concoctions ever brewed . . . all for an animal considered a dining delicacy despite having been hit hard by the ugly stick.

I know a guy - and, believe me, he is one of many - who has the sturgeon bug so bad he loses sleep over the ones that got away and dreams up new ways to hook the primordial denizens that are spoken of by anglers as the legendary equivalents of dragons in the counties of Yolo, Sutter and Colusa.

``They are really hard to catch and test your tackle skills to the limit,'' said Tom Schroyer, a big-time fisherman and hunter who cut his teeth on sturgeon growing up in nearby Woodland, a stone's throw from the muddy Sacramento. ``Most of it is done at night, and that adds the fear to it because it's a big critter out there that you can't see and you can never can tell what it's going to do.

``You never know if it's going to be a big one or a little one - the bite is the same on both. But if you hook up on a humongous one and it strips your line out, you live for the thrill of having something that big take your line that way. The mystery is what keeps you going back. You're out for the battle, and many times it ends up winning.''

In high school, Schroyer fished regularly from the river's banks with his chums trying to snag the beasts. And 23 nights in a row his line came up empty. Discouraging? You bet, but nowhere near enough to stop this determined angler.

Some people can go a lifetime without catching one of the anadromous fish - that is, they grow and mature in saltwater and spawn in sweet water. They are notoriously difficult to catch. I'm 0 for 1 in my only at-bat. But Schroyer, now 35 and making his home a ways to the south in Galt, has a career total of 25 hits on sturgeon, a remarkable achievement.

Schroyer recently guided me on my first sturgeon trip, an all-night affair anchored just north of here in a section of the Sacramento known as the Chico Straits. Famed as a holding area for sturgeon, it produced a nine-foot, 400-plus-pound leviathan a decade or so back.

We picked up our bait - ghost shrimp, with a single extended claw looking like a one-armed bandit - at Knights Landing Sports Center, which is more of a dusty drinking hole and pool hall than a sports center.

``They're still catching a few,'' a grizzled patron perched atop a bar stool noted between swills of beer as we prepared to depart.

Along a bumpy northbound back road with his 17-foot, open-deck Boston Whaler in tow, Schroyer pointed out hot spots for the diamondback, the beast's moniker derived from the rows of sharp, bony plates along its topside. Second Beach. Portuguese Bend. Glory Hole. Indian Bar. Red Sea, where banks of clay turn the water crimson. All renowned locales where stalwart anglers come to joist the dragon.

The white sturgeon, our target, spawns in the Sacramento over long periods but primarily from late February to late April. Some swim upstream as early as January and a few stragglers meander up into July. Biologists can't make heads or tails of its spawning habits, which adds to the mystique of the fish and the bane of the angler. The inside edges of river bends near deep holes and sand bars are popular places to bait up, but from there it's luck multiplied by the amount of time spent on the river.

``I've been on every inch of this river, but I still haven't figured out the sturgeon's pattern,'' said Schroyer, a fish and wildlife assistant with the Department of Fish and Game in Stockton. ``It's so hit and miss it's not even funny.''

His statement proved a foreshadowing for this uneventful evening.

Biologists know that sturgeons move at night, but there is no indication that they feed more frequently under the moon. Our efforts certainly didn't suggest otherwise.

No matter. I was plenty entertained by Schroyer's fishing stories and his baiting technique.

He regaled me with tales of playing a sturgeon from shore after it had broken his rod, of a monster specimen that yanked his 135-pound-test line so violently it dislodged his anchor and knocked him down before snapping a 9/o hook, of how he landed his biggest prize - a 7-1/2-foot, 157-pounder - some 10 years ago.

I watched him carefully load up the hooks, sandwiching them with pairs of shrimp and chasers of Sturgeon Cocktail - a fish-scent product so foul he used gloves to handle it. Diamondbacks feed my smell; it's a wonder they missed this fetid potpourri.

I dubbed my guide the Sturgeon General and we shared a chuckle before I retired to the bow, where a bed of plywood awaited. A tarp suspended over the railing warded off the drizzle, and the hum of the anchor line was like a distant symphony.

The closest thing to a bite that night was an occasional splash of a breaching diamondback, a sound something akin to a cannonball striking the water.

``It's a pretty sight, but it drives you nuts,'' Schroyer said. ``They jump right next your lines and you come up with nothing.''

But the memory of fish of such enormity getting airborne within earshot is quite enough to get me back on the murky Sacramento to duel the dragon with the Sturgeon General.

MEMO: Outdoors Editor Brett Pauly's column appears Thursdays in the Daily News.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, Drawing

Photo: (1--color) Scott Waller, of the Departme nt of Fish and Game, monitors sturgeon in the Sacramento River.

Dave Kohlhorst / Special to the Daily News

(2--color) Sturgeon aficionado Tom Schroyer begins an all-night vigil angling for the primitive denizens on the Sacramento River. ``They are really hard to catch,'' he says.

Brett Pauly / Daily News

Drawing: no caption (Sturgeon)

Jon Gerung/Daily News