Massive Sturgeon Caught on Shasta Lake

The stories of giant sturgeon in Shasta Lake have been circulating for decades. The giant fish are known to hang out near the bottom of the lake, typically eluding being seen or caught. But a photo was posted to social media on highlighting the capture of a massive sturgeon.

Sou Saephan posted a photo to the Facebook group 530 Fishing with an incredible story about the capture of the sturgeon. On a bass fishing trip on the lake, they noticed something big moving around in the water and took the boat over to check it out. Much to their surprise, it was a sturgeon choking on a catfish! Check out the photo:

Here is the full story from Saephan (edited for language):

So let me tell you a story about my day! I was in lake Shasta bass fishing with my buddy Brandon Bartlett today in the pit arm. As we limited out we were on our way home, and I see this thing swimming on top of the water from 100 yards or so and I’m thinking in my head like dam that thing is big and maybe it’s a buck or some type of animal drowning because it was splashing and I could see it from that far away on his boat so I told him to ride over there and what do you know it’s a f****** river monster just swimming on top of the water so I roped the tail because I could tell it was suffering. So we drug it all the way to the shoreline to see what was wrong with it and what do you know it was choking on a catfish! So me and my buddy pulled out the catfish and retied the sturgeon back up and swam him for like 2 hours with the boatand he came back to life! Was such a amazing experience I can’t f****** believe this happened and as a fisherman getting to do this is like hitting a jackpot one out of a million atleast for me it is because it was in lake Shasta! I’ve always heard they were there but never seen them caught in person or seen them in person out there what an amazing day! The thing measured at 98inches (8 feet 2inches) but we couldn’t get a weight on it! But we did do was make sure to snap a pick and release it safely back into the deep and home. Videos will be posted later! Of it choking on the catfish!!!! PLEASE NO COMMENTS ABOUT FISHING GAME EITHER BECAUSE WE REPORTED IT TOO THEM AND THEY SAID THAT WE WERE DOING EVERYTHING RIGHT AND THAT NO ONE COULD COME OUT TO US AT THE TIME! So we did what we had too and it worked out!!!

What a story. We can’t verify the truth of this story but have no reason to believe it was falsified. We’ve certainly heard stories like this but don’t have much photo proof. Here is one photo snapped years ago of a bear snacking on a giant sturgeon:

The legend of the giant sturgeon in Shasta Lake lives another day. Hoorah!