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> Nice fish tale. Thanks!

Cheers! You’re welcome.

Speaking of “fish stories” and Sturgeon, I heard a tale once from a fishing guide when I lived in BC. I DO NOT ATTEST TO ITS VERACITY but it does make an entertaining story. Please suspend your disbelief:

Apparently, Sturgeons are fairly dumb animals: this makes sense because they’re almost prehistoric. The Haida Indians knew this — they were West Coast indians who lived not far from the Fraser River. And they saw the Sturgeon fish as being a source of perpetual food.

So what they’d do is they’d catch a sturgeon by trapping it in shallow water: say three-to-six inches. Then some of the indians would keep the fish wet, while one of them would cut a three-sided flap of skin into the side of the fish.

They would then carge out of the fish a large hunk of meat, under the flap. The fish was so dumb it wouldn’t even notice, apparently. It would just sit there Duuuh and pay no attention.

Then the indians would sew the flap shut with grass, and then dig the fish out of the shallow water by trench into the deep water where it could swim away.

After a while, the flap would heal shut and the meat would grow back! And the indians would then catch it again later, and cut another flap and harvest another hunk of meat, then sew it shut — and this would go on ad-infinitum.

And that is why — I was told — some of the larger sturgeon have scars on their back and sides that look a bit like a patchwork quilt. Because that’s exactly what it is.

I would be interested if anyone else has heard something like that, and especially if it can be verified.