Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Idaho F&G catches 3 10 ft plus sturgeon in Hells Canyon survey

Estimated to be 70 years to over 100 years old....

Anyway, nice job if you can get it....

https://www.ktvb.com/article/sports...WtLk5KTQh-QrOsRvSPYc8uW0l5f-bCp6moWUflPc



White sturgeon reside in the Snake, lower Salmon, and Kootenai rivers, according to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game website.

Each year, DuPont and other researchers with Idaho Fish & Game, Idaho Power and the Nez Perce Tribe spend time fishing on the Snake River in Hells Canyon so they can measure, tag, scan for previous tags, and evaluate the condition of the sturgeon they catch. This takes place between Hells Canyon Dam and Lower Granite Dam. DuPont said that work helps increase understanding of the growth, movement and mortality of the fish, and helps highlight areas of concern where the researchers may want to do more focused work in the future. One example of more focused research relates to the growth rates of juvenile white sturgeon.

However, one of the most frequently-asked questions is, "just how big do sturgeon get?"

DuPont said the biggest sturgeon researchers have sampled was 10 feet, 8 inches long and bottomed out a 500-pound scale.

White sturgeon can live to be more than 100 years old. DuPont said it's difficult to tell if the big fish from his most recent research trip are that old.

DuPont said, based on the growth rates researchers are seeing now, their age is largely dependent on whether they lived in Lower Granite Reservoir for part of their life or not.

"If they lived in the reservoir, they are likely around 70-90 years old," he said. "But if they lived in the river their entire life, they would be over 100 years old!"

DuPont has the following tips for anglers who want to go after big sturgeon:

Use heavy line. We like to use 60-pound test mono for the main line with 80-pound test leaders. Although you can fish with heavy braid (150-pound plus), I don't like to use it because when it wraps around fish it can cut into them.
If you hook a big fish, it is important that you follow it closely with the boat. It is almost impossible to land a 10-footer from shore. You will often have to fight fish of this size for over an hour, and if you don't keep the boat above it to keep the line off the bottom, the repeated wear on the line as the fish hugs the bottom will eventually cause you to break it off.
Use big hooks. DuPont says, "I prefer to use 12/0 circle hooks or 'J' hooks 10/0 or larger. I have found that with smaller hooks you often don't get a good bite into their lip, which will make it more likely that it will eventually pull out.

Dang.

Lots of tartar sauce...

Imagine their potential growth rate if we still had the historic salmon runs making it as far as Idaho Falls.

If you ever, ever get a chance to have smoked sturgeon, don't say no.

Yes. That is for sure super fine grub.

Cool.

I wonder what the juvenile recruitment rates are though?

Saw a few below Lower Granite that fit the slot limit taken, and yes, they're tasty.

EdM caught a couple of nice ones.

We used to Smoke Lake Sturgeon from Lake Erie. Good stuff!

(Almost?) none. IDFG has a cooperative program with the Fish Hatchery at the College of Southern Idaho where F&G supplies brood stock and the students at the hatchery spawn and rear the juveniles for stocking in the various tributaries, and the excess gets sold to private growers.

Sturgeon are stocked in their native range, as well as outside their range such as below American Falls dam. Recruitment is almost nil because of the migratory nature of sturgeon and the various dams on the Snake river.

A 10' is an old fish probably 50+ years. They used to catch some 12 '+ monsters on the Columbia below Bonniville dam. I think keeper size in Oregon and Washington is 38"-42" which is pre breeding age. Years ago I used to fish the lower Columbia for them, good eating BBQ'd with terriaki sauce and wrapped in bacon.

Different slots for different areas and different openings. see WDFW regs.

I don't believe salmon could get over Shoshone Falls which is just upstream from Twin Falls. The falls are over 200 feet in height. It's one of the largest waterfalls in the U S.

Star falls I believe it’s called is up steam from Shoshone and I’m not sure salmon could get past that as well.

Last time I fished for Sturgeon when it was legal to keep them the slot was 38"- 54" to protect the older breeding population. We also caught several "oversize" sturgeon that would have been in the 8-10 foot range each trip. Those things will wear you out and that much fight isn't healthy for them so we tried to let them go as gently as possible and as soon as possible...

They have had a couple short keeper seasons on the lower Columbia lately and I hope they continue to offer these fishing days. They have a fairly long season for keepers above Bonneville dam and in the John Day pool from what I've been able to research, but I've never taken part in that fishery...

Bob

Rock Creek in Twin Falls was the last spawning tributary of the salmon. The early settlers screened the creek where they could because the spawning salmon would stop up the irrigation works and stink when they died. It was the longest spawning run of any salmon, IIRC.

My buddy and I were fishing in my drift boat just downstream from Tippy Dam on the Big Manistee River. We were anchored on a gravel tailout from Suicide Bend. We kept feeling and hearing bumping on the bottom of the hull. Looking over the back of the boat in the 3 ft. of water was a sturgeon tucked up behind the anchor. It was over a foot wide at the head and looked to be at least 8’ long.
Amazing swimming dinosaurs. We watched it for a while, too captivated to fish. About 20 minutes later we hear a woman’s voice yelling at us to come to shore immediately! We finally spotted her in a Michigan DNR uniform in a popup blind.
I asked her why we needed to come to shore. She said we were harassing the sturgeon and she was there to make sure nobody messed with them.
I pulled the anchor and said she would have to meet us at the boat launch at High Bridge landing. She yelled something that I couldn’t hear. We expected to have company before we got to the take out, but we never saw another DNR person the rest of our float, nor was there anyone at High Bridge either.