2003 was a good year with the commercial fishers providing information on 25 lake sturgeon. The majority of these fish were caught in the Keweenaw Peninsula area in upper Michigan. Fisheries biologists hope to gain an insight into the movement of these fish and habitat being utilized in various lifestages. One lake sturgeon that was tagged in June of 2002 was recaptured in July of 2003. This sturgeon had covered over 170 miles of shoreline from where it was originally tagged! To date a total of 76 lake sturgeon have been handled by the commercial fishers on Lake Superior.

Along with the commercial fishers, there are four tribal natural resource departments that are also cooperating with the Ashland FRO and gathering this biological data and tagging sturgeon. They recorded a total of 12 sturgeon for 2003. Hopefully the data gathered from this study and others being conducted by natural resource agencies throughout Lake Superior can once again restore the current low numbers of this great fish to their historical numbers and home range they once had.

A copy of the 2001 ? 2002 Commercial Fishers Report for the Great Lakes can be viewed at: http://midwest.fws.gov/sturgeon/rpt-GLCommercial01-02.pdf