This summer fisheries biologists decided to take an initial peek to see if it was worth a deeper dive to study the population and learn where it was going. First looks proved to be an eye opener “We did find out that it is a more robust fishery than we thought,” said Joe Thiessen regional fisheries biologist and lead on the study. “There’s a lot of fish there. We did find out that growth rates we’re higher than what we’ve seen in our more wild, historic sturgeon populations, say in like Hell’s Canyon, and in and below Bliss Dam. That’s encouraging to see that they’re growing fast.”