Back on October 11, 2014 I caught a 65″ sturgeon that had been tagged but the tag was missing. One could tell the fish had been tagged because of the wire through the fin. I reported the fish on the MN DNR website and stated that the fish was tagged but the tag was no longer attached to the fish.
Joel Stiras, Fisheries Specialist with the East Metro Fisheries section of the MN DNR got back to me about the fish. Joel stated that he went through his database and narrowed the fish down to four likely candidates, the only four that they have over 60 inches. Joel also contacted the fisheries guy in Lake City to see if the sturgeon could match one of the two that they have tagged that was over 60″ but he ruled that out based on photos. Joel states that he is pretty certain that the fish was 87973. It was originally caught on 11/3/2010 about a mile downstream of where I caught it. At that time it was 62.4 inches long with a 20.87 inch girth and weighed 44.1 pounds. So it looks like it grew 2.5″ in four years.
I asked Joel how old the fish might be and he stated that they don’t have enough data to make an educated guess but it is at least 40 years old can could be anywhere from 40 – 65 years old if he were to take a wild guess.
Joel said that they have never confirmed a lost tag of any type on these lake sturgeon and speculated about how that could have happened. He stated, “I started a new tagging method around 2009 where we used a double needle and omitted the loop that used to be in there. Then we used a wire twist pliers to twist the tag end. I’ll bet that they held on to the tag on the other side to keep it from spinning when using the wire twist pliers and it probably cracked the tag. I learned that lesson after breaking some tags when tagging catfish and started to use a pliers to hold the wire to avoid damaging the tag.”
Now here’s something that is also very interesting. Joel stated in an e-mail to me, “The really interesting thing is that there was a tag report this year where the original report online said the fish was 65 inches long and the tag was removed. I asked him about the tag being removed and he said that was a mistake, it was not removed. That kind of mistake is made all the time for those online reports, and I think if you forget to click yes or no on that part, the default is yes, it was removed. But this seems like a strange coincidence. Especially since he caught the fish in the same spot you did.”
I’d like to thank Joel for investigating this fish and giving me permission to share this information.
Here are a few photos of the fish.
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