KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. — Every once in a while the big one does not get away.
That’s what happened Monday morning at the mouth of the Link River where it empties into Lake Ewauna.
Bureau of Reclamation fish techs had set their net for the annual capture and transport of Link River sucker and shortnosed sucker. They capture, tag and transfer them to the upper reaches of Upper Klamath Lake, Agency Lake, the Williamson River and other tributaries, where the sucker will spawn.
A short while later, the buoys holding about 300 feet of trammel netting across the lake began to move on its own … upstream … against the current.
“That doesn’t normally happen,” said James Ross, a fish tech for the BOR who had just returned to the boat ramp. “We knew we had something big in there.” Ross and colleague, Brock Phillips, raced out to the netting and began to pull it in.
They had caught a massive white sturgeon.
“It was only in the netting for about 15 minutes,” Ross said. “But we think it was about 8- to 10-feet long and weighed between 300 and 400 pounds.”
While Ross took a cell phone video and snapped pictures, Phillips untangled the netting and they released the sturgeon.
According to Jared Bottcher, fish biologist for the BOR, sturgeon were planted in Upper Klamath Lake in the late 1950s.
“For whatever reason, they did not multiply,” Bottcher said. “A white sturgeon is about 43 years old when it reaches 7 to 10 feet. We think this fish was 20 years older than that, or 63 years old.”
Sturgeon have been found in Upper Klamath Lake and other places, but not in Lake Ewauna. However, they have been known to get out into local irrigation canals. One was found in a canal near Malin in the 1990s.
“They usually feed on dead fish, crustaceans, mussels on the bottom of the lake,” Ross said. “They’re like giant vacuum cleaners. They have taste buds on the outside of their mouths, so they know what is food and what is not.”
Green sturgeon are found in the lower stretches of the Klamath River and in the Columbia, but white sturgeon are rare.
Can you fish for sturgeon in Klamath Lake?
Yes, says Bill Tinniswood, assistant district fish biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
“It’s just catch and release only, but you can target them in certain parts of the lake,” Tinniswood said.
ODFW planted about 220 of them in the ’50s as a sport fish, but there are so few left, the one caught in Lake Ewauna may be the last survivor.
If you fish for them, you’ll need heavy line and a heavy rod.
“A rope would be best,” laughs Bottcher.
