I’ll admit it, I was a late bloomer when it came to sturgeon fishing. I had unsuccessfully tried fishing for them on the Rogue when I was a teenager. I eventually became too distracted by other things and moved on. Sturgeon fishing in Oregon eventually shut down almost everywhere. The few limited retention days that appeared near Astoria resulted in jammed boat ramps. At the time, I decided to pass and go hunt spring Chinook. I didn’t know much about sturgeon then. The regulations seemed daunting, and they were mostly catch and release. Trying to catch a fish I couldn’t put in the freezer meant they weren’t on my agenda. It wasn’t until I was preparing to open my business that I devoted serious time to them. It would be an understatement to say I didn’t know what I was missing.
Catching my First Sturgeon
My first successful try at catching a sturgeon happened in the Columbia estuary. My dad had come up for a visit and spring Chinook was closed. We headed out onto the flats and I set the lines. My leads were too light and my leaders were too short but I was giving it a try. I had talked to a few friends of mine for some advice and thought we had a reasonable chance. After a bit, the tip of the rod started moving with the distinctive twitch of a sturgeon. I carefully grabbed the rod and executed a hookset worthy of the best bass fishermen. The fish went from docile bottom feeder to raging bull in an instant. Line started peeling off the reel and I did my best to keep things tight until the fish turned. I handed the rod off to my dad to share the experience. He finished reeling in what would come to be one of the smallest sturgeon my boat would see. It wasn’t my best day sturgeon fishing, but it was a start. I later learned that little sturgeon was an exception and 8 foot monsters are much more common.
The Evolution of Sturgeon
Columbia River White sturgeon sturgeon trace their ancestry back to the Jurassic period. As a genus, they are older than the Pacific Ocean. They evolved tough sharp plates as a defense against plesiosaurs, pleiosaurs and icthyosaurs.
They still use their five rows of sharp scutes to protect against predators. Seals, Sea Lions, Otters, Birds, and invasive catfish still seek out sturgeon as prey. The scientific name for our primary sturgeon species, the white sturgeon is Acipenser transmontanus. This roughly translates into “five speared fish from across the mountains”. Sturgeon evolved to primarily eat shellfish and detritus from the bottom. Their mouths do not contain teeth. They do contain strong jaws for crushing. Those jaws are covered with a skin that is as tough as the leather of a catcher’s mitt.
Sturgeon Life Cycle
White sturgeon are born in freshwater, migrate to the ocean, and then return later for spawning. Unlike salmon in the Pacific Ocean, sturgeon can spawn many times over and can live for over a century. Only three rivers serve as primary spawning grounds, the Sacramento, the Columbia, and the Fraser. Once they reach spawning age at approximately 15 years old, White Sturgeon seek out deep spawning pools. They broadcast their eggs and milt, which then sink and attach to rocks with their sticky coating. A few days later the fry hatch. They hide in crevices while absorbing their egg sacks. At night, they rise up and let the current take them downstream before settling back down for the day. Their first food is algae and small organisms called copepods. They gradually transition to eating larger food including mussels, clams, shrimp, and dead fish. Their favorite foods include smelt that have died after spawning and small crustaceans. In the estuary, sand shrimp are the best bait. They then wander the oceans and rivers of the west coast, scavenging and sizing up until it’s time to spawn. They often transition between fresh and salt water annually as they follow food.
Decline of Sturgeon
White and Green sturgeon have experienced a decline across their entire range. They primarily suffer from habitat loss, predators, and pollution from farm runoff. Overfishing has been largely managed but did contribute to earlier declines.
Dams
Unlike salmon, sturgeon can’t use the fish ladders that allow passage beyond the dams. Once a dam is built, the fish above the dam must remain there, cut off from the ocean. The ones below the dams can no longer access much of their spawning ground. In the Lower Columbia, sturgeon spawning is limited to where the current is fast enough to clear out the silt.
Predators
California Sea lions have learned to target sturgeon, particularly below the dams. In recent years, the number of young male California Sea lions migrating into the Columbia has exploded. They come to feed on smelt, salmon, lamprey, shad, and sturgeon. They want to gain weight quickly so that they can return to their breeding grounds and compete for harems.
Overfishing
At one time, overfishing was also a big challenge for sturgeon. Sturgeon meat is nearly boneless, has mild buttery flavor and a tender, meaty texture. This makes sturgeon meat a high priced delicacy. The collection of sturgeon roe for caviar contributed to overfishing as well. Sturgeon used to be a mainstay of the Columbia River commercial fishery. Commercial fishing for sturgeon no longer exists in the lower Columbia. In the few places upriver where it does occur, it is tightly managed. Several of our local restaurants still serve sturgeon from upriver when it is in season.
With the help of catch limits, the Lower Columbia and Lower Willamette recovered quickly from earlier overfishing. They maintained healthy, natural spawning populations until around 2010.
Pollution
The rapid adoption of the weedkiller glyphosate coincided with the decrease in first year sturgeon survival. Glyphosate stops photosynthesis. When it gets into the water it kills both plants and the algae that feed the sturgeon’s primary food source. Data from more recent years shows a strong correlation between early sturgeon mortality and glyphosate use. There is also a study in Turkey that suggests that glyphosate can cause fatal spine deformities in developing sturgeon. Glyphosate is regularly detected in the Willamette and lower Columbia Rivers. This means it is being applied incorrectly on a massive scale. I will be doing a deep dive in a later post. For now this video is a quick take.
The other source of pollution that could be harming sturgeon is the over application of fertilizers. Excess nutrients in the water can cause harmful toxic algae booms. These blooms not only kill the food supply, but make what remains toxic.
There is a debate around the relative benefit of fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture. It seems logical that if they are getting into local streams, then they are being applied incorrectly. That incorrect application is also probably wasting the money of the farms that use them.
How Can Sturgeon Recover?
There are currently tens of thousands of spawning age sturgeon in the Lower Columbia and Lower Willamette. These fish can live for over 100 years and are just waiting to repopulate. Each female sturgeon can produce between 300,000 and 4 million eggs per spawning event. There are literally billions of eggs attempting to hatch each year. They just need the correct conditions to be successful. Sturgeon in the Lower Columbia should be an easy target for natural recovery. We just need to do something while we still have a spawning population.
More stringent enforcement of current rules around pesticide and herbicide application would be a great start. Oregon only has 10 individuals responsible for monitoring herbicide and pesticide application in the entire state. This is probably too few to cover the Willamette valley alone., let alone all of the farm and timber land across the rest of the state. Supporting farmers in using different ways to control weeds and more accurately apply fertilizer will be necessary. The benefits will go beyond just sturgeon.
Lower Columbia sturgeon shouldn’t need expensive hatcheries or massive habitat programs. We just need to stop whatever started happening 15 years ago.
Should we Fish for Sturgeon?
My answer to this is yes, especially with our current catch and release fishery in the Lower Columbia. There are a large number of adult sturgeon in the Lower Columbia. Some exceed 12 feet long. There are many more in the ocean and neighboring rivers sizing up. Catching your first sturgeon can be a life changing experience for even an experienced angler. There is nothing like being on the other end of the line when a 300 lb prehistoric fish goes airborne.
Sturgeon are tough, and catch and release poses minimal risk to the fish. More importantly it gets people invested in their recovery. Every sturgeon brought to the side of a boat can create an advocate for their recovery. While I don’t think it’s possible, I would love to get tired of taking people fishing for sturgeon
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