| White Sturgeon | |
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Family: |
Acipenseridae (Sturgeons) |
Genus and Species: |
Acipenser transmontanus |
Description: |
The body of the white sturgeon is long, roughly cylindrical, and has five rows of bony plates on its back. The snout is bluntly rounded and more or less depressed below the level of the forehead. The mouth is toothless, protruding, and sucker-like. Four fleshy projections, or barbels, extend from the underside of the snout. The fish is overall gray in color. The white sturgeon can be distinguished from the green sturgeon by its overall grey color, 38 to 48 bony plates along the side, a round snout, and the barbels are closer to the tip of the snout than to the mouth. |
Range: |
This species occurs from Ensenada, Baja California, to the Gulf of Alaska. The white sturgeon is the largest fish found in North American freshwaters. The white sturgeon is anadromous, and spends more of its time in the brackish (part salt, part fresh water) waters of bays than in the open ocean. Most anadromous fish spend their adult life in the ocean or brackish water, and spawn up freshwater streams. |
Natural History: |
White sturgeon are bottom feeders and their diet consists predominantly of clams, grass shrimp, crabs and herring roe. All can be used as good baits to catch fish that are most commonly under 300 pounds. Rocks, twigs and other odd things have been found in their stomachs and a white sturgeon caught in the Snake River had eaten half a bushel of onions that it had found floating in the river. This species is long lived and may live to be over 100 years old. |
Fishing Information: |
A good food fish, the white sturgeon in California has been taken commercially in the past for its eggs (caviar). |
Other Common Names: |
Sacramento sturgeon, Oregon sturgeon. |
Largest Recorded: |
12 feet; 1,285 pounds. Largest recreational caught in California: 468 pounds. |
Habitat: |
Bay Environment |
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