You can’t remove sturgeon from rivers in Idaho

BLACKFOOT, Idaho (KIFI) - A man recently posted a picture of himself taking a sturgeon out of the water on social media.

Pulling a sturgeon out of the water in Idaho is illegal, and there are a few reasons for that.

White sturgeons are the largest freshwater fish in North America. They need to survive decades to reach their maximum adult size of 8 to 10 feet or more.

That's why it is illegal to harvest sturgeon in Idaho. If you catch a sturgeon, you must not remove it from the water. You need to release it upon landing.

Sturgeons are ancient fish. Their skeletons are entirely made of cartilage—the stuff our ears and the front part of our nose are filled with. So they are extremely fragile. Even bending a sturgeon a little can injure it.

“Their fragile skeleton cannot actually support its own body weight,” said Regional Fisheries Biologist for Idaho Fish and Game, Nathan Tillotson. “And so removing a fish like that from the water can damage it and potentially break its bones. And it would then die later on because it's not able to swim as well as it would have otherwise.”

When you fish for a sturgeon, you need to use barbless hooks and a sliding sinker. Then you need a test line going to your sinker that is lighter-weight than your main line.

For more on Idaho fishing rules and laws, click here.