NorthWest Kayak Anglers
Kayak Fishing => Big Fish Brag Board => Topic started by: snewberry on December 16, 2019, 11:49:28 PM
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Swan Island 12/14/19 bucket list fish. I never imagined catching a fish like this from my kayak.
Estimated 9'8", 450 lbs. >1 hour fight and she swam away like it was nothing while I crawled to the truck to recover.
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Incredible fish! Great photo of proper handling of such a massive fish as well :).
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Awesome Photo! Congrats 🍾🎉 🍾
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I hope that we will stop fishing for sturgeon and limited this fishing to one or twice a year to minimize the harm to these big fish. I guess this fish at least 50 years old, and I don't want to see this one or any of them die for any reason. I did not mean that you did not handle the fish properly, but I am afraid the second person might not be that gentle or knowledgeable handling the fish. I hope you understand what I try to said.
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I hope that we will stop fishing for sturgeon and limited this fishing to one or twice a year to minimize the harm to these big fish. I guess this fish at least 50 years old, and I don't want to see this one or any of them die for any reason. I did not mean that you did not handle the fish properly, but I am afraid the second person might not be that gentle or knowledgeable handling the fish. I hope you understand what I try to said.
This topic has been studied widely in British Columbia. There are very large old fish in the Frasier that have been caught many times across their life. With proper handling and gear survival rates post release are essentially 100%. There is no scientific basis for a closure of the catch and release sturgeon fishery. The only negative affects I've read about are catching fishing during the spawn which can cause females to reabsorb eggs due to the stress of the fight which is why most spawning areas (below dams and waterfalls) are closed to sturgeon fishing during that time.
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Nice fish
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Tank
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I hope that we will stop fishing for sturgeon and limited this fishing to one or twice a year to minimize the harm to these big fish. I guess this fish at least 50 years old, and I don't want to see this one or any of them die for any reason. I did not mean that you did not handle the fish properly, but I am afraid the second person might not be that gentle or knowledgeable handling the fish. I hope you understand what I try to said.
This topic has been studied widely in British Columbia. There are very large old fish in the Frasier that have been caught many times across their life. With proper handling and gear survival rates post release are essentially 100%. There is no scientific basis for a closure of the catch and release sturgeon fishery. The only negative affects I've read about are catching fishing during the spawn which can cause females to reabsorb eggs due to the stress of the fight which is why most spawning areas (below dams and waterfalls) are closed to sturgeon fishing during that time.
However, I have walked the banks across from Swan Island below St. Johns University and found multiple dead sturgeon washed up on the rocks. Im not going to jump to conclusions but it makes me wonder.
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I hope that we will stop fishing for sturgeon and limited this fishing to one or twice a year to minimize the harm to these big fish. I guess this fish at least 50 years old, and I don't want to see this one or any of them die for any reason. I did not mean that you did not handle the fish properly, but I am afraid the second person might not be that gentle or knowledgeable handling the fish. I hope you understand what I try to said.
This topic has been studied widely in British Columbia. There are very large old fish in the Frasier that have been caught many times across their life. With proper handling and gear survival rates post release are essentially 100%. There is no scientific basis for a closure of the catch and release sturgeon fishery. The only negative affects I've read about are catching fishing during the spawn which can cause females to reabsorb eggs due to the stress of the fight which is why most spawning areas (below dams and waterfalls) are closed to sturgeon fishing during that time.
However, I have walked the banks across from Swan Island below St. Johns University and found multiple dead sturgeon washed up on the rocks. Im not going to jump to conclusions but it makes me wonder.
He's probably talking about the first study that comes up when you google 'sturgeon release mortality' (http://frasersturgeon.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Direct_delayed_mortality_of_WS_in_three_gear_types_LFR.pdf). Which came up with a 2.6% release mortality rate on 94 angled fish all smaller than 53" held in holding tanks for three days to be monitored if they croaked. This one (https://academic.oup.com/conphys/article/4/1/cow031/2951643#58169543) from 2016 took 48 sturgeon from a research facility in Longview, put them in a sling, let them thrash around and exposed them to air to simulate being angled. Two of them died. This paper also speculates that water temperature has a effect on release mortality and also has a pretty strong correlation between lactate levels and recovery time / mortality. I don't think either of these studies are particularly robust, which is a common theme on any study on this subject. Although I think there are problems with the studies, I think there's enough there fairly safe to say that sturgeon if handled properly have a relatively low release mortality - at least in the 10 minute to 3 day time period after release. In practice we all know there are a bunch of dummies pulling these fish completely out of the water by their gills for facebook cred, so the actual release mortality rate is probably higher than what was observed in these studies. I'm not familiar with the catch accounting in the Columbia for sturgeon but can imagine it's probably in 1,000's and when you multiply numbers like that even by small mortality rates you'll end up non-negligible numbers of unnecessary dead fish.
I personally have ethical issues with catch and release fishing and think it's a waste of time, but if I didn't I would try to do the following things to reduce the impact on the fish:
- Don't take the fish out of the water, no matter how much facebook cred you'll get
- Try to hook the fish mouth and not the gut
- Use heavy line to reduce the duration of the fight (lactate build-up)
- Try not fish when the water temperatures are high
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great fish man! truly an awesome experience