Sturgeon Reintroduction

[JBMasterAngler]

I read that the DNR/Red Lake Band is going to stock 10,000 sturgeon fingerling in the fall of '07 and '08 in hopes to reintroduce them into Red Lake. I'm sure it'll work, so far it's worked quite well reintroducing them into the red river/otter tail river systems. That'll be a nice surprise tugging on your line a few years down the road.

[daddyducker]

In the few shows I have watched on sturgeon, and the waterways in which I have seen them fished out of, are you sure that the depth of Red is going to be sufficient to there life style?

You always see them being harvisted in large deer rivers, with good strong continuous current, not to mention the life span on these prehistoric fish well exceed our own, therefore it would leave me to beleive, that this could be speculation, and if not, just a waste of tax payers money.

Don't get me wrong though, if they have all the lagistics worked out on it, more power to them, because I'll be right next to the other guy trying to horse one in.

And in that kind of water they may not be as tough to rangle. Just my opinion...I would like to hear back as well.

[Pikester]

Depth shouldn't be a problem, from what I have read and heard there are some rather large deep pools on the lower part of the lake.

[daddyducker]

What about current?

And so what you're saying is that we will be putting them in an area that we can't even get close to.

Is there any substantial water flow on the north end of the lake?...any depth?, and does that coincide with the season?

[Pikester]

Notice the poster wrote DNR\Red Lake Band will reintroduce them. I dont think it really matters if we can get to them or not.

[LABS4ME]

Lake Sturgeon were once native to both basins of Red Lake. Like most lakes with a sturgeon population, they were never numerous... but made a presence. Man did them in... not by fishing, but by damming. They were not able to get into the river to reproduce. They are gonna put a fish ladder in on the Red Lake river so they can come and go during their spawing runs. Lots of current coming out of the Tamarac on the north basin... LOTS! there is actually a fair amount of current in the lake... it's just so big (and usually windy) that it generally goes unnoticed. I say bring em back!

Good Luck!

Ken

[daddyducker]

I agree...Bring 'em back. I'll be there to try my hand at a new breed.

Is there going to be any restrictions on them from the Red Lake Band side of things? Even though the lake is huge, we all know how slow of a growing fish they are...they just don't bounce back like other speices do. Have we made them any deals?

I would love to see sturgeon there if possible, but is it worth the time and effort if we have absolutely no control over the restrictions?

[kelly-p]

My father often talks about watching the big sturgeon "rolling" in the warm water in the spring. Sturgeon grow slow, he will never see it again in his lifetime nor will I. I hope my grandchildren can watch them as he did.

As far as I know the Red Lake Band has done most of the work to reintroduce the sturgeon to the Red Lakes.

[hanson]

The reintroduction of Sturgeon is a major project on the Red River & Red Lake Rivers. Since Red Lake is in the same watershed, and the headwaters to the Red Lake River, it only makes sense that stocking would occur in the big lake.

Many of the lowhead dams on the Red Lake River have already been removed and replaced with rock/riffle dams to facilitate movement of fish within the river. From what I understand, sturgeon in the Red Lake River make large movements for spawning and they need to move through these areas that have previously been dammed off.

The removal and replacement of the lowhead dam in Crookston had definitely altered the movement of fish in Crookston. It used to be like fishing fish in a barrel under that lowhead but now the fish move right up through the rock/riffle dam.

I have also heard of guys catching crappies around the Crookston area, although it was a rare occurrence. From what I heard, they sure sounded like Red Lake sized fish. Were they native to the river or did they get swept downstream from Red?? Probably will never know but its interesting to know that fish are making these large migrations in the watershed.

[JBMasterAngler]

I don't believe there will be much for regulations, it'll be no open season for as long as I'm alive I'm sure. And the red lake river is plenty big. I fish the snake and kettle rivers out in the pine city area regularly and they each have good populations of sturgeon (the current and previous 3 state records have come from the kettle). They only average about 3 or 4 deep. Anyway, I think it's a good idea to bring fish back to their native habitat wether we can fish for them or not. And I think it will work great too, with all the sturgeon comebacks (red river, upper st. croix, lake superior, rainy river, etc) I have yet to read about a failure.

[Milkdud]

I caught this one outside of the gap on LOW and it was a blast getting it in, however it made a mess of the other lines that were in the water.

http://my.imageshack.us/v_images.php

[daddyducker]

I agree and since my last posts, I have done alittle research. It doesn't sound like there will be a season on these fish for 20 plus years.

It doesn't matter though. They were there once and doing well. Why shouldn't they be there again. Also, the Red Lake Band I beleive is going to be doing most of the work, and funding...with slight help from the DNR.

So sorry if I blew-up.

[Sutty]

I have always wondered what people do with them that keep them? Is it a poor mans lobster kinda thing or smoke them or filet them and eat them like any other fish? Never fished for them myself just curious.

[JBMasterAngler]

CAVIAR!!! Of course that all depends on wether the fish you caught was a female or not

[Sutty]

I thought about that. Maybe people just look for a stuffed full of eggs female. I also thought though that might be made out of the other types of Sturgeon?

[JBMasterAngler]

I could never see myself keeping a sturgeon. Actually, I'm not the type to keep any kind of trophy fish. If I was offered sturgeon to eat, I'd definitely have to give it a try though.

[PYROPAL]

Lake Winnebago, by Oshkosh Wisconsin, isn't a very deep lake. They have quite a few sturgeon and a spearing season. They have taken at least 3 over 100 lb.s this year. There was a picture on the web a few weeks ago of a six foot guy laying on the ice next to his six foot fish. I imagine fighting a fish like that while wally fishing would be like hooking the dock and motoring toward the horizon!

[slimy]

SMOKED is the only way to prepare stergeon I know others that have tried other methods and say the only way is in the smoker it almost comes out like a tender ham. Yum! Just a kwik story about a stergeon on the Rainy : My son and I were fishing walleyes up near Birchdale one day in the spring and we were doing alright, when Derek pulled up a walleye 11 Lbs 31", about 6 boats pulled in right behind us and a couple threw out their anchors, well we did a couple more controlled drifts by this group when one of the anchored boats hooked up on a big sterg. they managed to pull their anchor and we watched them try and fight that fish for 2 hours, we went in for lunch for an hour and came back out they were still fighting it, these guys would take turns handing the rod to each other and take a break . We hung around for another couple hours watching this, never did see the fish, and my son to this day believes those guys are still in their boat fighting that fish somewhere on the west shore of Lake O Woods.

[JBMasterAngler]

I think that story would be really funny if you found out they never had a sturgeon on at all, and in fact, they were just stuck on the bottom.