7' 240-pound sturgeon more than 100 years old caught in the Detroit River

[GiG]

240-pound sturgeon more than 100 years old was caught in the Detroit River near Grosse Ile.  
Female sturgeon can live up to 160 years.

"A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service crew caught a 240-pound sturgeon last week. It is 6-foot-10, with a girth of nearly 4 feet. It is a native — and threatened — species to Michigan, and one of the largest lake sturgeon ever caught in the United States."

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2021/04/30/lake-sturgeon-michigan-fish-detroit-river/7411644002/

[Rams]

Cool!   

Well, maybe.   Don't know much about fishing.   Regardless, that's a big fish.

Rams

[3fan4life]

That's a "Fish" story alright.

The article says that it's been in the Detroit River since the 1920's.

My first thought was, Can you imagine all of the toxins that thing has ingested and survived?

[msb]

White Sturgeon are plentiful in the Fraser River...best fishing spots for them are out by my place. White sturgeon live up to 200 years and can weigh well over 1000 pounds. A guy in my neighbourhood is a guide "The Sturgeon Hunter"... big industry, folks come from all over to catch one of these giants. Not allowed to keep 'em of course. I'm a big trout fisherman, never fished for sturgeon myself... not my bag to do big gear fishing, and I guess I figure if a fish has been around 100 + years I'd just as soon let it be. This photo is of 3 guys from Calgary who caught this 900 lb 11.5 ft monster... apparently took them about 2 1/2 hours to get it in (they bring them into shore).

[The emperor has no clothes]

White Sturgeon are plentiful in the Fraser River...best fishing spots for them are out by my place. White sturgeon live up to 200 years and can weigh well over 1000 pounds. A guy in my neighbourhood is a guide "The Sturgeon Hunter"... big industry, folks come from all over to catch one of these giants. Not allowed to keep 'em of course. I'm a big trout fisherman, never fished for sturgeon myself... not my bag to do big gear fishing, and I guess I figure if a fish has been around 100 + years I'd just as soon let it be. This photo is of 3 guys from Calgary who caught this 900 lb 11.5 ft monster... apparently took them about 2 1/2 hours to get it in (they bring them into shore).

Whoa !

[John Schmidt]

Dang, you could put a trolling motor that thing's tail and keep fishing. I remember as a kid about 7-8 yrs. old I hooked a large carp while fishing with my dad. That thing fought like crazy, as a little kid I thought I had hooked Moby Dick.

[Jess from VA]

It seems a shame to take those monsters out of the lakes and rivers.  (or not catch and release)

Not a tree hugger or anything...., maybe just my own age and mortality kicking in.  

In the 1920s, Grosse Ile MI was a major bootlegging stopover and hideout for smuggling good Canadian whisky over to Prohibition Detroit.  Plenty of gun battles, and there's supposedly thousands of bottles of booze way down in the mud from being thrown overboard before being caught.  

And Jimmy Hoffa could be down there (what's left of him).  

Grosse Ile MI in the mouth of the Detroit river, running into Lake Erie (bottom).  Canada on the rightt, MI on the left, Detroit on the horizon.  Moved in in 1964 for 4th grade.  The airfield was a Naval Air Station only for prop planes, and a coast Guard station, closed long ago, now a community airfield.

[Ramie]

I grew up near a river with huge kettles in it and for some reason the sturgeons like them.  The biggest I remember anyone ever catching was around 40bls and they brought them in the boat after shooting them with a 22.