Boys Pull 'Monster' Sturgeon From Minnehaha Creek; DNR Looking To Relocate It
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Two boys in Edina pulled a 6-foot sturgeon from Minnehaha Creek on Wednesday, and now conservation officers are working to find the massive fish in an effort to place it in more suitable waters.
According to video posted on YouTube, one of the boys, Mac Hoekstra, had been watching the fish for weeks as it lurked in the creek's shallow waters. On Wednesday, he and a friend somehow tied a rope around the "monster" fish's tail, pulling it from the water.
Amid the screams of neighborhood children, the boys posed for pictures with the fish and measured it before pushing it back into the creek.
According to The Star Tribune, one of the neighborhood children called the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to check on the fish.
The conservation officer could hardly believe that a sturgeon that big, estimated to be about 70 years old, could be in the lake. However, a massive sturgeon was stopped under the 56th Street bridge.
DNR crews attempted to catch the sturgeon Thursday but were not successful. They plan to try again Friday. The goal is to move the sturgeon into a river where it could possibly breed. Over the past several years, the DNR has been working to remove dams to help the fish reach their ancient breeding grounds on the Rain, St. Louis, Red, and St. Croix rivers.
Sturgeon are a pre-historic fish capable of living and breeding into their hundreds. DNR officials told The Star Tribune that the one found in Minnehaha creek was likely a female that had been introduced decades ago into Lake Minnetonka, from which Minnehaha Creek flows.
How did it end up in the creek? The recent wet spring, it is believed, likely allowed the fish to swim out of Grays Bay into the rain-swollen creek.
