Sturgeon, Fossil Fish Making A Comeback

Discussion in 'Science & Nature' started by Yvonne Smith, Jun 28, 2016.

  1. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    Sturgeon are one of the most ancient fishes, and are about the same now as they were back when the dinosaus roamed this earth of ours.
    There are almost 30 different species of sturgeon, some of them only a few feet long, and others that grow into actual monsters.
    The white sturgeon is the largest fish in North America, and fish weighing up to 1500 lbs have been caught, in earlier times when they were more plentiful.
    Sturgeon eggs are what caviar is made from, and large sturgeon, weighing almost as much as a deer, could feed a family for a long time during the winter when food was scarce. Over-catching of sturgoen, and the bulding of many dams in the early 1900's, cost us a lot of our country's largest fish, and some species are now considered as endangered.
    So, I was happy to be reading that Lake Sturgeon are being re-introduced in the Tennessee River (which we are close to), and other types of sturgeon are also being re-introduced in to different lakes and rivers here in America where they once lived and flourished.
    At this point, people who actually catch one of the lake sturgeons here in the Tennessee River are not allowed to keep the fish, and are encouraged to take a picture and report where and when the fish was caught so that they can be tracked to see where in the river they are living mostly.

    Here is a picture of a 1500+ lb sturgeon that was caught in the Snake River in Idaho back in 1898. It would have taken many men and horses to drag that monster to shore; but it probably also fed most of their families for a long time, too !
    image.jpeg
     
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  2. Ike Willis

    Ike Willis Supreme Member
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    I haven't eaten smoked sturgeon since I was a kid. My dad used to get it. It was deeeeeelicious.
     
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  3. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    I have never tasted a sturgeon, @Ike Willis , although I dearly LOVE smoked kokanee blueback , rainbow trout, and also salmon.
    What kind of meat does the sturgeon have ? Is it flakey like most fish or more of the meaty kind of fish, such as a swordfish has ?
    I have only seen pictures of some of the huge ones that people used to be allowed to catch and keep, and never even seen an actual live sturgeon.
    Where did your dad get his sturgeon, and did he smoke it himself or buy it already smoked ? I used to have one of those Little Chief electric smokers and I loved making smoked fish with that when we had caught enough fish that we could have some for dinner (pan-fried, naturally), and smoke the rest for eating cold.
    My ex-husband loved to fish, and we would often be out trolling for blueback and larger trout in the evenings until they closed the park gates at dark and we had to leave.
     
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  4. Ike Willis

    Ike Willis Supreme Member
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    The last time we had any was way back in my snothood days. Seems like it was kind of flakey. Back then we had a fish market or two in town, and they sold it. Even then, it was expensive. We usually had to settle for smoked carp. Even that was pretty good, but boney.
     
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