WTF am i seeing

[TheFishSlayer]

Ok so this might just be losing my mind, but I swear I'm seeing some weird shit in the bay lately. So the two past times I've been out in raritan I have been seeing some huge fish breaching and getting fully air-born. I've saw them in the lower Bay Area off Staten. So on Sunday we saw ages jump not so far from the boat, it wasn't a dolphin, to big to be a bluefish, definitely not the body of a striper, so wtf am I seeing. I got a decent look at one that jumped about 75ft from the boat and I saw its belly side and to me it looked like a sturgeon. Seriously WTF am I seeing???? Spinner shark, sturgeon, Nessie?

Help I feel crazy

[SaltLife1980]

Might be a sturgeon. I got one out there last year

[aruvio]

Definitely sturgeon. Many of them in there every year this time.

[Gerry Zagorski]

I'd say sturgeon too. We see them pretty regularly just outside Chapple Hill Channel south of the West Bank light house.

[Hunter 2]

Sturgeon, I've seen them many times by West Bank throughout the years. I hooked one on a light Bucktail rig accidentally and was spooled very quick.

[Skolmann]

Sturgeon. Had one breech right next (I mean within a foot or two) to our boat the other day. Scared the crap out of my son.

Was told years ago that the females do this to loosen their eggs prior to their spawning run up the Hudson. Not sure if that is accurate though.

[shrimpman steve]

Saw at least 15 of them yesterday. Definitely sturgeon. And yes I have always been told they do this to loosen eggs.

Seems like every year someone posts the same question and would guess the answer is sturgeon. Salmon for what it's worth do the same thing when they spawn, they jump to loosen the eggs before dropping them so if sturgeon spawn this time of year it would make sense. Good to see a healthy population in this area. I was fishing a few years ago under he Verrazano Bridge and one went air borne three times maybe 50 feet from the boat, Very cool sight! Is fishing for them legal and if so are there any guides who target them. Would be cool to catch one but assume they're on the endangered species list and most likely off limits. I'd guess there's some real trophies roaming the waters.

[shrimpman steve]

Without looking it up I think the sturgeon here (Atlantic sturgeon) are on the protected list. There is a fishery out west but I don't think they can be targeted here

[Treebeard63]

These posts spring up every year about this time when the Sturgeon get frisky.. While they are endangered on the whole, the Hudson has one of the strongest populations of those that remain...In 1998 a 40 year coast-wide moratorium went on them.. we get them occasionally up here in the river while chunking bass in the spring...be great to have a C&R fishery like they have out west.. they get huge.. but once they go on the endangered list, you can't even give them a dirty look.. but when the moratorium lifts, right after my 75th birthday, they better watch out