Tagged Sturgeon Info Returns

[Hottamale1]

A few months ago I fished with Dennis Hull (Hello Dennis) of Bite-Me Guide Service and we landed a keeper sturgeon with a tag, on the Willamette near Shenanigans.

Finally, after 3 months, I received a reply from the WDFW.

Here's what it said...

Tagged: Youngs Bay 6/29/1998
Caught: Willamette 2/03/2001

Tagged Length: 43 inches
Tagged Caught: 46 inches

Miles between Release and Recovery points: 88 miles up river.

Days betweeen release and recovery: 950

Hard to beleive that this fish only grew 3 inches in only a little less than 3 years! That's obviously less than an inch per year!

Other info provided was...

A 42" keeper is usually around 11.2 years old
A 60" keeper is close to 19 years old.
An 8 Footer is around 45 years old...and so on.

Pretty cool stuff [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Scott www.hottamaleoutdoorshow.com

[SureSet]

Scott, that is interesting information. I looked up the last fish I turned in and it was tagged at 39", May of 2000 at Grays Point. Harvested March of 2001 at Kelly Point at 43". 4 inches at 296 days. Similar pattern of being tagged in the estuary and harvested up river (84 miles in this case).

Either the fish grow at different rates (triple?), or it makes you wonder about the accuracy of the tracking process. Might just be that size accuracy isn't that big a deal (within an inch or two).

Anyone have other tagged results?

SureSet

[Biteme]

cool info scott
with all of the stuff that fish puked out when we brought him/her into the boat you would have thought that it would have had a higher growth rate than that. I,m headed up to astoria for the next couple of months, are you going to be up that way if so look me up. (kampers west)

[Hoosier Daddy]

Sturgeon grow pretty fast when they are young, then slow down quite a bit as they get older. So the differences you guys are talking about could be due to a difference in size. Scott's being tagged at 43", and the other at 39". That difference shouldn't account for all of it, so maybe the smaller one spent more time in the estuary before moving up, etc., that would account for higher growth from better feeding, or something like that. More than likely, Scott's fish had similar growth early on in life, and then slowed down, whereas the other fish hadn't crested that length where growth starts to slow down yet. Could be that it would take another 950 days for that fish to reach the 46" that Scott's was.

[KarenLee]

useful info [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[SandyRiverFisher]

-I was fishing with a bud below Bonneville a couple of years ago when he landed a nice 59". It was the first tagged fish either of us had ever seen. He sent in the info. and awhile later got a reply stating that the fish had been tagged only a few weeks prior in the Dalles pool! Even the DFW thought that was odd! Imagine a fish coming down over those dams and not being injured or killed! Talk about an amazing fish, the sturgeon is just about at the top of my list!