THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 9, 1995 TAG: 9508080118
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: COASTAL JOURNAL
SOURCE: MARY REID BARROW
LENGTH: Long : 109 lines
Soon after the first settlers arrived in Jamestown, the Virginia Council sent a letter to the Council in England, raving about the fish in our local waters, particularly the sturgeon.
The James River was ``so stored with sturgeon and other sweet fish as no man's fortune has ever possessed the like,'' the letter said.
Capt. John Smith also wrote of the prehistoric looking sturgeon in glowing terms: ``In summer no place affords more plenty of sturgeon . . . ,'' he said.
Capt. Christopher Newport confirmed the sturgeon's reputation, writing that ``the main river (James) abounds with sturgeon, very large and excellent good.''
Sturgeon fishing became an important fishery for the colonists and continued as such for almost 300 years. The big, slow moving fish were an easy target for fishermen and provided more bounce to the ounce than most other fisheries because the sturgeon were so large. The record sturgeon in Virginia weighed more than 800 pounds and was 14 feet long.
The sturgeon population was declining drastically by the turn of the century, however. Fishery scientists blamed the decline on overfishing, poor water quality and the construction of river dams which prevented sturgeon from traveling up river to find the fresh water they need for spawning.
John Galloway, owner of Virginia Beach Seafood, recalled seeing sturgeon in the fish markets, as a youngster. Oldtimers spoke fondly of the good firm sturgeon meat, he said.
``The nickname was ``pork chop (as in I caught a pork chop today),'' Galloway remembered, ``because that's what they tasted like. They only had one big bone down the back and they used to cut them in steaks.''
When Galloway was commercial gill net fishing 17 or so years ago, he would catch sturgeon occasionally. Usually it was in early spring when he was fishing a mile or two out in the ocean.
``They were weird looking,'' Galloway said. ``They had a really hard body, really rough. They were alligator looking with big scales that were tough like an alligator's skin.''
By then it was illegal for fishermen to keep sturgeon, he said. Today, it's really rare for a commercial fishermen to even catch a sturgeon. Only once in a while, a fisherman comes into Galloway's store and comments that he had a sturgeon in his nets. In fact it's so rare now that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with Virginia and Maryland to restore the Atlantic sturgeon to the Chesapeake Bay and its waters, according to a bulletin from the Virginia Marine Resources Commission Fisheries Statistics Office.
To learn more about the abundance of sturgeon and their life cycle, fishery biologists began a tagging project last spring. Each tagged fish has one spaghetti-shaped tag on its bottom fin and one on its top fin. Tags are printed with a serial number and a toll-free Sturgeon Information Hotline number.
If you catch a tagged sturgeon or see a dead one, report the serial number to the hotline along with information such as size of fish, date, place and method of capture. If you return a sturgeon tag, you will get a sturgeon fishing hat that identifies you as a participant in the sturgeon conservation effort.
The fish and wildlife service also wants you to call if you see a sturgeon or hear about one being caught. The number is 800-448-8322.
You would be extremely lucky but there is a chance you could see a sturgeon leaping from the water. David De Vries, a traveler in early Colonial times, wrote about the sturgeon that ``sprang out of the river, into the sloop. We killed it and it was 8 feet long. The river is full of sturgeon . . . ''
So far this year, there have been reports of sturgeon only from the upper Bay, said Jorgen Skjeveland, project leader for the Maryland Resources Office of the fish and wildlife service. The most recent reports from Virginia came in three years ago when a couple of dead sturgeon were found, one on the Eastern Shore and one in the James River.
It's not uncommon that juveniles about 2 to 4 feet long, get caught in pound nets, Skjeveland said. Sturgeon are never brought up on hook and line, probably because they are bottom dwellers. With another pig characteristic, sturgeon root around in the bottom mud looking for food. Then, rather than biting the mollusks and worms they find on the bottom , sturgeon suck their prey up with unusual sucking mouths.
Another species of sturgeon, the short-nosed sturgeon, is so rare both in the Bay and up and down the Atlantic Coast that it is on the federal endangered species list. Although still uncommon, Atlantic sturgeon is more abundant in rivers farther north.
To raise awareness of the sturgeon, Skjeveland took an aquarium of some very young fish from the Hudson River to a watermen's exposition in Ocean City, Md. The little sturgeon drew so much attention that Skjeveland is now considering carrying the aquarium around to other places where large numbers of people gather.
``They are an odd fish that looks like a prehistoric monster,'' Skjeveland said. ``They lave large scales or scutes that feel like bony structures. The rest of the fish has a leathery feel.''
It would be nice to bring back such an exotic fish that only 300 years ago was extolled for its ``abundance, largeness and peculiar excellency'' by still another early Colonial fan.
P.S. TAKE A NATURE AND ECOLOGY WALK with refuge volunteer Vickie Shufer at 10 a.m. Saturday at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Call 721-2412 for reservations.
ENJOY A LEMON TEA in the garden at the Hunter House Victorian Museum in Norfolk at 3 p.m. Sunday or Aug. 27. Admission is $5 and reservations are available by calling 623-9814.
HEAR BAROQUE AND RENAISSANCE MUSIC at Lynnhaven House's Sunday Music Series at 2 p.m. Sunday. The concert will be in the First Church of the Nazarene next door to Lynnhaven House and a reception will be held at the historic house after the concert. Tickets are $4. Call 456-0351 or 481-2145. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know about
Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555. Enter
category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net. by CNB