The Very Large Trout Lover's Thread (ot)

Steve Carroll, a.k.a. Sturgeon Steve, took a friend kayak fishing for sturgeon on the Snake River in Idaho last weekend and videotaped him nearly getting KO'd by a monster sturgeon that measured 8-feet long.
"We're going to be targeting some big sturgeon today," Carroll said in the introduction of his video. "I mean big."

He wasn't kidding.

They first spotted the big fish five miles downstream from Glenns Ferry.
Carroll told KTVB they were in the water only a few minutes before the sturgeon took Bryce Thompson's bait. The size of the sturgeon was on full display when it launched out of the water like a missile, nearly landing on Thompson.


He fought the giant fish for about an hour before they brought it to shore to measure. Then they released it, as is required.
Carroll, who has been fishing for sturgeon from kayaks for about four years, estimated the weight of the sturgeon to be more than 300 pounds

As for the coloration. They vary with diet, sex, habitat, genetics, and maturity. Those pesky and feisty silver rainbows in Hot Creek are that color because of being raised in concrete tanks, being young, and pellet fed. They will eventually turn darker with age, a natural diet, and their surroundings.

I had one of those really silver rainbows break me off. He was about 18 inches which would put him in the creek for 1 1/2 years, longer than he ever lived in concrete. Yet he was still that shining silver of these new fish. Maybe they will darken with age but I suspect their lineage also is part of the reason for their color.

And Hot Creek Hatchery doesn't raise diploid rainbows or browns so they came from somewhere else.