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Biggest sturgeon


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What's the biggest sturgeon you guys have seen or have heard of from a reliable source?

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Biggest in our boat is 65 1/2", largest I have heard of is a friend of a relitive (relitive was with) was 70" last summer.

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I caught a 57 last weekend that was tagged, after reporting it this is a small portion of the email i recieved...

As of the date of this letter, we have tagged 5,243 lake sturgeon,

2,428 longer than the 45 inch minimum size limit, at the time they were

tagged. The longest sturgeon we have tagged was 71.3 inches long, but

weight was not recorded for this fish. This fish was tagged on the

Rainy River, near the mouth of the Littlefork River, in 2004. The

heaviest sturgeon we have tagged and weighed was 77.9 pounds but only

65.7 inches long. This fish came from the Littlefork River in 2000.

The largest sturgeon we have sampled was caught off of Pine Island in

September of 2007. This fish was 73 inches long and estimated to weigh

120 pounds. Unfortunately we were not set up to tag this fish, so it

was released without a tag.

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We caught a couple 62 inchers. However there was a big difference between them. The one I caught was 50 lbs. The one my buddy caught was 64 lbs. Same length but totally different fish.

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Caught a 72.5 inch 2 years ago, looking at the current record I would say, this one would have given it a run for the money. It's cool to see people interested in sturgeon fishing. When I was fishing them years ago nobody was fishing them. Now people have an interest in them. I think it should be all catch and release though. Rainy is the only place in the state you can fish for them, if you want to eat fish, remember you are at the Walleye meca of the world, keep them instead.

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I know most people would be all for cpr only. Why keep a fish that's that old? BTW, when does walleye season close?

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 Originally Posted By: jadkins
Rainy is the only place in the state you can fish for them

Not entirely true.

There is a stretch on the St Croix that you can fish them as well.

They tend to be more abundant, but smaller. For sure some real big ones mixed in though.

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My 52"er on the Rainy was my heaviest but I got a 58"er on the St. Croix.

A 68"er was caught right next to me last year on the Rainy. Guess it over 70lbs.

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I wasn't aware of the St' Croix sturgeon area, because I never get down that way. I would think most people practice CPR but I have heard of and seen people excited to keep one because it fell in the slot. I guess the DNR feels the population is stable enough to have people keep one, but with tghe added fishing pressure maybe they will rethink it in a few years.

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Back when I started fishing sturgeon, a friend and I boated a 69 incher. It weighed 75lbs when we got it to a scale in Bemidji the next day, and it was still alive after riding in the back of the scout from International Falls to Bemidji. Wasn't too far from the state record at the time. I believe that was spring of 1996, maybe 1995. Can't remember for sure. It was fun though!

Matt Phelps

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We landed a tagged fish Sunday, took down the #'s and stats. Who are you suppose to give this info to, just a general DNR #?

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This is from a reliable source, as I had set the hook 2 seconds after this young fella set the hook. Lone behold we had the same fish. I let nearly all of my line out and we watched this 13 year old boy land this FAT 68" fish. Great to see!

Wonder if this is the same one you saw boated Tyler?

13yo68bb5.jpg

This is the biggest I've seen up there, and I haven't heard from a reliable source of many bigger...

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 Originally Posted By: Matt Breuer
This is from a reliable source, as I had set the hook 2 seconds after this young fella set the hook. Lone behold we had the same fish. I let nearly all of my line out and we watched this 13 year old boy land this FAT 68" fish. Great to see!

Wonder if this is the same one you saw boated Tyler?

13yo68bb5.jpg

This is the biggest I've seen up there, and I haven't heard from a reliable source of many bigger...

That wasn't it Matt.

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I got the info back real quick on that Sturgeon, apparently it grew from 32" to 36" since October 2007, I though they grew a lot slower than that?

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I hooked into another guys big fish as well, they weren't following the fish and I was about 50 yards away from them when the fish snagged my line. They fought the fish for over an hour and basically never moved their boat. It was too bad because the area they "took over" was putting out some real nice fat girls...

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I think I'm glad you don't have kids too, because you attiditde doesn't seem to be one that needs to be passed on.....

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do you actually think i would want to eat a sturgeon. come on. i only keep walleyes and i dont even keep them over 17". it sickened me to see people measuring fish and tryin to get their limit of 19 3/8" so they could get more meat. i made it a point to keep 15-16" all males

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I know some guys that are good at rolling a big fat one, but maybe not that big.........

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Back when I used to fish for sturgeon, there was no slot limit. So the 69 incher was not a protected fish. Although,you are correct, that fish and the 71 incher spoken of are fish now in the protected slot, so I certainly hope people aren't keeping them.

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 Originally Posted By: [Note from admin: Please read forum policy before posting again. Thank you.

Although I understand what you are saying... Keeping a legal sturgeon is no different than keeping a legal muskie. When I was younger we kept one legal sturgeon per year (1 over 48") to have smoked. They are very rich and taste very good smoked.

With this being said I have not kept a sturgeon in 14 years. And you are correct about the river being polluted, It still is and will be for years to come. After trying to eat sturgeon without being smoked, it was terrible due to pollution, we gave up eating them all together. As long as people do things that are legal we should not criticize them, but help educate them as to CPR.

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