Caught a rare fish

[geckel]

Firstly, hello fishingtn.com community. I'm fairly new to the nashville area and have been avidly fishing middle tn for about 1 year. I mostly fish artificials with spinning gear from a kayak (malibu stealth 12) but I am preparing to purchase my first boat...expect a thread looking for advice in the future on that matter. Anyways...

I was kayak fishing the caney this past weekend during the shad kill. I had high hopes of hooking a big brown but was sadly disappointed. In fact, my friend and I did not even get a bite the hole time with the exception of this fish. Desperate for some action i baited a dead shad i found floating by my anchored kayak. I fished it off the bottom just off the current, directly below the dam. When I hooked it, I was immediately sure that I had the big trout that I came here for but when I finally saw it I was to surprised to be disappointed. Following a quick photo session i released the animal uninjured. After a little online research I found that Lake Sturgeon are endangered in tn and grow to be 8' long and over 300lbs. I felt this was a remarkable catch so I thought I would share it. Enjoy

[Alphahawk]

Nice catch! I think TWRA has a number to call if you catch one of those. They are trying to find out their travel habits.


Regards

[Mnfishingbum]

Awesome! Great memory there

[tkwalker]

Nice catch! I think TWRA has a number to call if you catch one of those. They are trying to find out their travel habits.


Regards

These have been reintroduced to the State Fisheries ... Contact TWRA ... I will also send thread to Doug Markham and maybe he can head us in the right direction for reporting on these ... Thanks <'TK>< :p

[browntrout]

Wow congrats man, that is awesome!!! I will be interested to see what TWRA has to say about it. Please keep us posted on it.

Roy

[nofish]

Man that's awesome! I would love to catch his daddy!

[MNfisher]

That is awesome, congrats! There was one caught from the steps on the dam last winter! Must be a few hanging around that area.

And also, welcome!

[TNtransplant08]

Awesome catch indeed! Congratulations! Hopefully Tennessee will someday support a population of large sturgeon that sportsmen can enjoy catching. Wisconsin just completed their annual sturgeon spearing season in the Winnebago system and its always awesome to see the huge catches. Its one thing I wish I would have tried before I left WI, since I grew up around there. The state record is 212 pounds, but this past spawning season, the DNR captured a 240 pound, 87.5 inch female!

[MNfisher]

We used to take a yearly "SturgFest" trips to the Rainy River, the border of Canada and MN. On good trips we would catch 75-150 sturgeon ranging from 15-80 pounds in a weekend! Now that was fun!!! It would be amazing if TN could someday host a population like that!

[Mike Anderson]

That is awesome! Definintly pass this on to the agency. I've sent it to a good friend who's a local Fishery biologist. Congrats!

BTW I caught a rare fish this weekend too.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8101/8501347689_d51862769d_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/90274194@N08/8501347689/)
DJ2A6411.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/90274194@N08/8501347689/) by FLY FISHING TN (http://www.flickr.com/people/90274194@N08/), on Flickr

[blink]

That is really cool. Sturgeon are some crazy looking fish.

[Travis C.]

That looks like the stocked size they put in at Shelby Park ramp. I wonder if that fish made it all the way up from there or was stocked closer to the Caney.

[Reel Tune]

Welcome to FishingTN geckel. Congratulations, that's a rare catch there, but not the 1st one caught from a kayak below Center Hill. Last summer there was one caught, if I remember right it was around 20", about the same size you caught. I would like to see an established population, they are magnificient creatures.

Nice fish Mike

Jeremy

[browntrout]

Welcome to FishingTN geckel. Congratulations, that's a rare catch there, but not the 1st one caught from a kayak below Center Hill. Last summer there was one caught, if I remember right it was around 20", about the same size you caught. I would like to see an established population, they are magnificient creatures.

Nice fish Mike

Jeremy

If they get real big we could ride them in our kayaks from the dam down to Happy, that would save us a lot of paddling time. Kind of like they do those big tunas in the ocean.

Roy

[blink]

Hey Geckel, i am also new to Nashville. If you are ever looking for someone to wet a line with let me know.

[punchs]

Caught one on the Cumberland a year ago right by a boat launch just waiting for the Mrs to walk down the dock. I thought I was the only one to have caught one in TN. Used to catch them over 13ft on the Snake back in Washington.

[geckel]

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone. I'm please to have found this forum ....my wife doesn't find the topic of fishing nearly as stimulating as I do so now I have an outlet.
I did call TWRA after I got home and read about the sturgeon online. I missed the gentleman that normally handles the sturgeon related calls but I did leave a message with a woman for him to call me back. She took the info about the catch over the phone. I am assuming that he got the data.

[geckel]

That is awesome! Definintly pass this on to the agency. I've sent it to a good friend who's a local Fishery biologist. Congrats!

BTW I caught a rare fish this weekend too.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8101/8501347689_d51862769d_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/90274194@N08/8501347689/)
DJ2A6411.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/90274194@N08/8501347689/) by FLY FISHING TN (http://www.flickr.com/people/90274194@N08/), on Flickr

That is a rare fish indeed. I've made about 10 trips to the caney so far, solely motivated by the thought of a hefty trout. I did have a big one on that got away....honestly I don't think it was nearly that big though. I noticed the fly rod in your photo. I've been exclusively throwing 3-5 inch trout mimic rapalas. Perhaps it's time to mix my offerings up a bit.

[nofish]

http://tnfish.org/LakeSturgeonRestoration_TWRA/AcipenserFulvescensResorationTennessee_TWRA.htm

It says twra stocked 3500 in the clinch river in 1992 and around 82,000 in east Tennessee and additional stockings have taken place in middle Tennessee including old hickory. How big would a 21 year old sturgeon be? The article also said they can live to 154 years and grow to 300lbs +. Wow! They used to swim in the waters around here before the dams right?

[tkwalker]

http://tnfish.org/LakeSturgeonRestoration_TWRA/AcipenserFulvescensResorationTennessee_TWRA.htm

It says twra stocked 3500 in the clinch river in 1992 and around 82,000 in east Tennessee and additional stockings have taken place in middle Tennessee including old hickory. How big would a 21 year old sturgeon be? The article also said they can live to 154 years and grow to 300lbs +. Wow! They used to swim in the waters around here before the dams right?

Like I have mentioned before, in another post ... My G-Dad and Dad use to tell me about schools of Sturgeon in the 200 to 300 pound range back in the 20's and 30's Swiming in the Cumberland . Then the dams and locks started being built and the migrating sturgeon started to disappear...

Now, Sturgeon are a prehistoric species and the Paddle Fish are their first cousin ... Neat that TWRA is trying to reintro them again ... Bravo !! <'TK><:o

[nofish]

Like I have mentioned before, in another post ... My G-Dad and Dad use to tell me about schools of Sturgeon in the 200 to 300 pound range back in the 20's and 30's Swiming in the Cumberland . Then the dams and locks started being built and the migrating sturgeon started to disappear...

Now, Sturgeon are a prehistoric species and the Paddle Fish are their first cousin ... Neat that TWRA is trying to reintro them again ... Bravo !! <'TK><:o



That'd be one heck of a surprise hooking into a 300lb fish that's 8' long or bigger! If it didn't break you off you'd be in for one heck of a ride!

[nofish]

Geckel check out this link and make sure to get your certificate.

http://www.eregulations.com/tennessee/12tnfw/tennessee%e2%80%99s-lake-sturgeon-project/

[nofish]

I wonder if any are still swimming around from before the dams?

[nofish]

Last link: http://news.tn.gov/node/1255

Congratulations geckel

[j19bill]

Congratulations! Rare catch indeed.

Sent from my Droid Bionic complete with typos and sarcasm.

[Aquaholic6801]

I wonder if any are still swimming around from before the dams?
I have heard about one that was caught in the mid 80s that was over 6 ft long....