Strange Fish 10 - Lonesome Sturgeon

A fine June day.  A good time for fishing.

Of course for me that means trying to catch Strange Fish as part of my geocache series of the same name.  The gimmick is that I try to "put the cache near the catch".  But as I get to make the rules I also get to make the exceptions.  Here's Duncan Creek just below the dam.  The latter was once associated with a mill, and is one of several such structures that have been approximately on this site since the 1860's.

If you have keen eyes you might have noticed a heron on the far end of the spillway.  And if you have very keen eyes indeed you might see a couple of shark like fins in mid stream...

It's actually the dorsal fin and tail of a Lake Sturgeon.  As the fin is pretty far back you don't get a full sense of just how big this thing is.  Here's another view....

Probably four to five feet long and in the neighborhood of 40 pounds.  They do get bigger...some hit seven feet and 300 pounds!  Here's what they look like out of the water.

Sturgeon are very strange fish, essentially unchanged since dinosaur times.  And you have to admire their determination here, trying so hard to swim past an obstacle they can't hope to cross in order to get upstream and spawn.  After a while a second sturgeon came along.  I imagine one side of their conversation was along the lines of "Hey baby, what's your sign?"  "Pisces?  Me too!"  "So, uh, your place er mine....."

I felt justified in making a Strange Fish geocache to place nearby.  I mean, I was actively trying to not hook these monsters and did not have the special stamp you need to purchase to keep one.  Besides, I think I had one of them on briefly and it snapped my lightweight line with ease.

Here's the commemorative geocache container.  It's made from a water bottle, some polycarbonate fins, a bit of foam rubber for the head and obviously plenty of black duct tape.

If geocaching interests you, here's the link:   

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Addendum:  I'm advised that sturgeon have already spawned for the season and that they can do so with relative success in the larger waters of the nearby Chippewa River.  What they were doing trying to swim up a creek is unclear, and they aren't talking.