How to know it
A lake sturgeon cannot be mistaken for anything else: a long, grey-brown fish with rows of bony plates instead of scales, a shark-like tail with the upper lobe longer, a pointed snout with four barbels in front of a toothless, tube-shaped mouth on the underside of the head. It feeds by feel, vacuuming insects, snails, crayfish and small fish off the bottom. Shovelnose sturgeon, a much smaller river fish of the Mississippi, has a flatter snout and a thin filament on its tail.
Where it lives
Lake sturgeon live in the big rivers and lakes of the region: the Wolf and Fox rivers and Lake Winnebago, the St. Croix, the Rainy River and Lake of the Woods, the Menominee, the Mississippi, the St. Louis River, and the Great Lakes themselves. They were nearly wiped out a century ago by harvest and dams and have been recovering slowly under protection; a fish takes twenty years or more to spawn for the first time, and a female spawns only every few years. Most of the time they are on the bottom of deep holes and channels.
Through the year
Sturgeon spawn in spring on rocky shorelines and below dams, and on the Wolf River the spawning run can be watched from the bank, which is one of the region's natural events. The hook-and-line seasons are set around this: a fall season on some rivers when the fish gather in the deep holes, and a spring season on others. Through summer the fish are on the bottom in deep water and are not much fished. The February spearing season on Lake Winnebago, through the ice, is a tradition more than a century old, managed with a cap and a count every day.
How guides fish for it
Anchored on a deep hole with heavy gear: a stout rod, braided line, a heavy sinker and a gob of crawlers on a single hook, set on the bottom and waited on. The take is a slow pull, the fight is long, and a big fish is brought alongside, measured, photographed in the water and released. On the Rainy River and the St. Croix the spring and fall catch-and-release fishing is the kind of trip anglers travel for. A sturgeon guide knows the holes, the rules — which are strict and specific — and how to handle a hundred-pound fish without hurting it.
Handling and release
A sturgeon is kept in the water. It is not lifted by the gills or the tail, it is not laid on the deck of a boat, and the photo is taken with the fish supported in the water alongside. The states publish handling rules and most guides go further than they require. Harvest, where it exists, is by tag and is a once-a-season event.
Rules
Sturgeon rules are the most specific of any fish in the region — seasons by river, catch-and-release stretches, tags, registration and gear rules. The Wisconsin DNR and the Minnesota DNR publish them, and a guide will know the ones for the water you are on.
