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During a sturgeon fishing trip in late September, I saw fish & game doing a netting survey near Cove Arm Lake on the Snake River. They were placing nets Sept. 28 &29 in the river. Does anyone have information of what they found or were hoping to gather information on?
BTY during my 5 days the 3 of us in my boat caught 12 sturgeon between 3'9" to 7'7". One break off and one broken rod. My sturgeon newbie son-in-law caught the first fish which was also the 7'7" one. Like shooting a big buck on your first hunt, it will be hard to improve upon.
Ran into Stan the Man, whom I had met in June when I towed his boat back to the ramp after his engine failed. He had a friend with him that had never seen a sturgeon. As it happened, we caught a 6'1" while chatting, giving his friend to see start to finish how we landed, photo'd, and measured the fish.
Burley Hue McCulley
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Good fishing to all. Hue
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Burley,
I think you may have seen the Idaho Power Co. fisheries crew collecting information on sturgeon. As part of their hydropower licensing, IPC is required to keep track of the sturgeon population around their dams on the Snake River.
That netting work was related to studying how this year's high river flows might have helped sturgeon spawning. Sturgeon only spawn in the CJ Strike to Bliss Dam area maybe every 5-10 years when there are high river flows. This was a very lucky year for high water, and it looks like sturgeon were successful at reproducing, which is great news!
Idaho Power survey was able to capture 148 baby sturgeon that were spawned this spring. They were tagged to keep track of their growth, migrations and survival over the next several years. It looks like a pretty healthy batch of new sturgeon that will come into the population, which is good news.
Most of the little sturgeon were already 10-12" long, since they grow really fast through the summer in their first 1-3 years of life. IPC and IDFG will be doing another round of joint surveys in the CJ Strike area of the Snake River this week looking for more baby sturgeon and keeping an eye on how many are out there and how they are doing.
I've included a photo from Idaho Power of one of the baby sturgeon collected and tagged this September. In another 10-15 years, this could be a really big fish!
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Great news and information. Thanks!
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That is great news, thanks for sharing it with us. I had not idea that sturgeon spawned that well in high water years but it makes sense, with more cover for those smaller fish to hide in. Amazing growth too.
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IDFG, Thank you for your reply to my Question. I didn't expect your detailed response. I'm sure there are many on this forum that appreciate the work done to improve our fisheries. Although I'm new to sturgeon fishing, I have seen the great results of decades of work on the Snake River. These fish need our respect and safe handling in your catch and release program. Thank you and your associates for your ongoing work.
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Good fishing to all. Hue
] Small sturgeon have got to be one of the neatest looking fish.