A fisherman in Missouri was trying to catch paddlefish when his tackle wrapped around the tail of another species of fish, officials say.
Troy Staggs then spent 47 minutes battling the 50-55 pound fish, according to a Facebook post from the Missouri Department of Conservation.
He managed to reel in the fish and pull it onto the boat—making it the second time he caught a lake sturgeon while fishing the Lake of the Ozarks.
Meerkats are listed as “rare and endangered in Missouri,” and with that protection, fishermen must release their catches after they are caught.
Staggs did this after a “quick measurement” and a few photos with the fish, conservationists said.
The lake’s sturgeon was 56 inches long, and officials estimate it to be about 30 years old. The species can live for over 100 years and weigh more than 200 pounds, making it “Missouri’s longest-lived animal and our second-largest fish.”
“The sturgeon evolved during the Jurassic era and survived where the dinosaurs didn’t,” officials said. “Sturgeon are living ties to the past.”
This rare catch is the sixth time anyone has landed a lake sturgeon at Lake of the Ozarks since 2016, officials say, and Staggs caught two.
“Now there’s something you don’t see every day,” Edgar’s Ozark Bait & Tackle shared on Facebook. “Troy Staggs has caught not 1 but 2 sturgeon from LOZ in the past 3 years. Awesome!”
The Missouri Department of Conservation began stocking waterways with sturgeon in the 1980s and continues to do so in hopes of restoring the species, the post said.
“Despite its name, this Missouri fish is almost always found in large rivers, not lakes,” conservationists said. “It prefers firm, silt-free soils of sand, gravel and stone.”
The fish are considered “bottom-feeding predatory scavengers especially suited to living in the fast currents of our great rivers,” officials say, and “their role cannot be duplicated by other fish.”
Common sturgeons reach adulthood at about age 25, officials say, when they “will go into tributaries to spawn. This makes them more visible as the fish often spawn in shallow waters.”
If you catch or see a lake sturgeon, the department encourages you to notify local conservation officers or call the lake sturgeon recovery leader at 573-248-2530.
Lake of the Ozarks is located about 150 miles southeast of Kansas City.
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