Summer Job Update Plus A Pic

[fishguy_8]

Hey guys, Im up here in northern michigan up by lake huron on the black river. just thought id check in and say hey to everyone i have a pic i will try and load for you all the fish im holding is the biggest one caught this year, which i caught, she is 108lbs and a little over 6'3''. I chased her for a good 30min but finally got her. we estimate this lake sturgeon to be around 40 years old. i currently have a little over 3000 larvae and many more to hatch in the coming days. ive got a lot more free time on my hands right now so if you have questions please ask im bored out of my mind in my free time...no tv and no one to hang out w/.
Jon

[schrocat]

That's a serious fish!

What exactly are you doing?

[almostdiva]

Hey Jon!

Are your sturgeons the same species as the Caspian Sea variety? What is the average life span of these fish?

[fishguy_8]

as far as what im doing up here.....im working w/ the michigan dept. of natural resources and michigan state university collecting data. we capture the fish, implant a PIT tag under the skin by the 3rd scoot, we find fork length, total length, weight, and gerth size of each fish, then we take a clipping of their dorsal fin for dna analysis later and finally put a floy tag on them just below the dorsal fin. the floy tags are green for males and orange for the ladies. after all that is done we try and get them to give us a donation or egg/milt. its tough to get the eggs because you have to get them at the very moment they are ready to spawn or you will just give them a belly rub all day. the milt is easy to get the males are ready and willing. we have thus far tagged 133 of these monsters. the caspian sea variety is different. this species is native, from what i know, only to the great lakes region. there are several different kinds like the atlantic sturgeon that gets like 18ft long i believe. their avg. life span w/o pochers obviously, is over 100 yrs. these are a prehistoric fish so they have been around for quite some time. In michigan on the river im in they have a 24 hr guard set up all down the river of local people that volunteer throught the "sturgeon for tomorrow" group. they take these fish very serious here its pretty cool. not only are their volunteers there are conservation officers all day as well. one fellow that volunteered to stand guard actually had a gun hooked up to his 4 wheeler and the CO's didnt care. Thats how real it is to these people its pretty awesome. these guys dont reach sexual maturity until the age of 25 yrs and they only spawn for around 4 days a year. These fish are harvested all too often for caviar or for the thrill. From what i hear the meat isnt all that great but some people will eat them. now that the spawning run is over we took the eggs/milt we collected and have 24 families of fish that we made each family is kept seperate so we can study fertility, viability of the eggs/sperm, resistance to a fungus that they are very prone to getting and eventually killing them at the egg state known as sapraligneae. Im currently manning the hatchery facility on my own so after I beef them up for a few weeks we are going to release them at 3wks 6wks and 9wks. During these times were going to shock the river like crazy and "burp" the fish we catch so we can find out who is predating these guys. My prediction is the redhorse aka "mullet". I noticed a school of redhorse behind every spawning site just waitin on the eggs so i bet theyd gobble up the larval ones as well. Before we release them i have an elastomer tagging kit which is basicly a tattoo kit for fish. that way we know if its one i raised or a naturally produced one.

[schrocat]

No TV huh...that could stink.
Are you having to stay in the field for this job or something?

[fishguy_8]

in a sense....we have a motel we rented its a 3 room motel and it looks as if it hasnt seen business in quite some time. but now were doing larval drift as well so we are working crazy hours 8am-3am....the people of the town keep us fat though...one family always cooks for us and ill tell ya what she can cooooooooooooook! so id hardly say im roughing it.

[scubadude]

are these the sturgeons that are sought after for their delicacy of caviar?

[fishguy_8]

That they are scubadude. That is one of the main reasons for poching these guys.......that and some people eat them and some just like the thrill of the chase....but during spawning season its not always a tough chase. This little lady took about 30min of chasing before we netted her but others you can literally grab.