Born an inch long

Five to eight days

A lake sturgeon egg hatches in five to eight days. Two weeks after that, the fry are about an inch long. That's the whole fish, tail to snout, about the length of the top of your thumb.

Spiky on purpose

Sturgeon don't have scales. They wear armor: rows of bony plates called scutes. On a young fish those plates are spine-tipped and sharp. As the fish gets older they smooth out, and on an old, big sturgeon you can barely see them. So a baby sturgeon is the spikiest a sturgeon will ever be. That's why ours has bumps down its back.

A year in the river

Baby sturgeon don't head straight for open water. They stay in the river they were born in for about a year before they move out to the lake.

Whiskers, not teeth

A sturgeon has no teeth. Under its snout hang four whiskers, called barbels. They drag along the bottom feeling for food. When they touch something, the fish pushes out a tube-shaped mouth and sucks it up, silt and gravel included. On the menu: snails, crayfish, mussels, water insects, small fish, and eggs.

The long wait

This is a fish that takes its time. Males are ready to spawn at about 15. Females wait until they're 24 to 26 years old, then spawn only every four to six years after that.

Most adults end up 4 to 6 feet long, 30 to 80 pounds, and live 50 to 100 years. The biggest reach about 7 feet and 200 to 300 pounds, and can live 150 years. A 2026 study from Michigan State University and the Michigan DNR, built on 44 years of tagging records, found some may live past 200.

Why hatcheries help

More than 15 million lake sturgeon once lived across the Great Lakes. Overharvest cut them down hard. Today hatcheries help bring them back by raising young sturgeon to about 7 inches before letting them go.

Then comes the patience part. A female let go this year won't spawn until she's in her mid-twenties.