Being a volunteer sturgeon guard comes with some perks. We are expected to watch our rock piles for twelves hours, either in a day shift or night shift, but we are repaid with three meals and...a hat!
At the sturgeon camp, we ate a lovely meal of ham, vegetables, potatoes, and cherry crisp for dessert. Next we packed a midnight lunch: sandwiches with cold cuts and cheese, fruit, chips, and candy bars. Then we met with the "sturgeon general" to get our assignments. By now the day shift was coming back and reporting how active the sturgeon were at their sites. The wardens added their observations. Now the sturgeon general had a good idea where the fish were and made her assignments accordingly. We asked for and got The Pines, our favorite site. (We've guarded there three times.) Then we received our official baseball caps, this year navy blue. Each year, the cap is a new color. We will add this one to those hanging from nails on our walls.
The Pines isn't far from the sturgeon camp. On private land, it is not open to sturgeon gawkers, who go to the banks of the Wolf at New London and Shiocton. The only people we would see during our twelve hours would be the property owners and a warden. Gary parked the van on the ridge that overlooks our charges. To the south of the ridge is a slough, or a bayou as the owner describes it. Here there are waterfowl, and one year, sandpipers, stilts and other shore birds. One year, after an especially snowy winter, the slough was entirely underwater. That spring, Gary and I canoed into it, scaring the geese.
On the north side of our ridge there's the Wolf River. The DNR brought in cement blocks to serve as rocks along their stretch, and the sturgeon love them. On this side of the ridge, in the swamp across the river, there are sandhill cranes, mallards, and the sweet singing of the white throated sparrow. Most years there is a kingfisher or two but it was cold this night, and they must have gone looking for warmer territory.
My first job is to go to the bank and call down to the sturgeon "Hello, Ladies!" welcoming them back. They ignore me, of course. They are busy laying their eggs by thrashing against the rocks as their consorts, the much smaller males, thrash as well as they spread their sperm to fertilize the eggs. It is a wild sexual orgy, and we voyeurs get to watch them.
It is difficult to get a good photo of the sturgeon because the water is brown at this time of year because of the tannin from the leaves that fall in the river. Even if one can get a photo, it doesn't show the size of the female fish, often six feet or longer.
The sturgeon were busy re-producing, and we began to get ready for our night guard.
At the sturgeon camp, we ate a lovely meal of ham, vegetables, potatoes, and cherry crisp for dessert. Next we packed a midnight lunch: sandwiches with cold cuts and cheese, fruit, chips, and candy bars. Then we met with the "sturgeon general" to get our assignments. By now the day shift was coming back and reporting how active the sturgeon were at their sites. The wardens added their observations. Now the sturgeon general had a good idea where the fish were and made her assignments accordingly. We asked for and got The Pines, our favorite site. (We've guarded there three times.) Then we received our official baseball caps, this year navy blue. Each year, the cap is a new color. We will add this one to those hanging from nails on our walls.
The Pines isn't far from the sturgeon camp. On private land, it is not open to sturgeon gawkers, who go to the banks of the Wolf at New London and Shiocton. The only people we would see during our twelve hours would be the property owners and a warden. Gary parked the van on the ridge that overlooks our charges. To the south of the ridge is a slough, or a bayou as the owner describes it. Here there are waterfowl, and one year, sandpipers, stilts and other shore birds. One year, after an especially snowy winter, the slough was entirely underwater. That spring, Gary and I canoed into it, scaring the geese.
On the north side of our ridge there's the Wolf River. The DNR brought in cement blocks to serve as rocks along their stretch, and the sturgeon love them. On this side of the ridge, in the swamp across the river, there are sandhill cranes, mallards, and the sweet singing of the white throated sparrow. Most years there is a kingfisher or two but it was cold this night, and they must have gone looking for warmer territory.
The sturgeon were busy re-producing, and we began to get ready for our night guard.
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