Of Storms and Sturgeon

Chuck Frederickson, Lower James Riverkeeper

Hurricane Irene—Irene certainly left her mark on the James River watershed with a huge number of downed trees and power lines. But her overall impact on the river itself seemed to be beneficial. Before the storm, I could measure light penetration in the river with a Secchi disk to around an average of 40 cm. Four days after the storm, the first day I was able to get out on the water, I was surprised to see readings of 70 cm! I got these levels at several sites from Herring Creek to Jones Neck Cut. Not a lot of sediment washing down from above Richmond, along with the big slug of water washing out the algae, lead to this situation. Nice to see, but we are back to really turbid water now after all the rain last week.

Sturgeon—The fall run of Atlantic sturgeon in the James is in full swing. So far this fall we have caught 29 sturgeon in the area near the Presquile spawning reef. As in past years, we have also seen numerous fish jumping and rolling from around Presquile up to Kingsland Reach.

Last Friday, Matt Balazik and crew from VCU caught 12 sturgeon. Ten were confirmed mature males but the most exciting catch was a female that had very recently spawned. Matt was able to extract several mature eggs from her before measuring, tagging and releasing her. Later that day a large (approximately 200 pounds) fish was caught that we believe was a gravid female, but could not confirm. That’s me with the sturgeon in the photo. Earlier this year a gravid female was caught in Burwells Bay, but this is the first one we have caught up river. I’ll be monitoring the egg mats we’ve placed on the spawning reef and give you an update.