There is nothing like an evening stroll in Gardiner Waterfront Park, where people are fishing in the Kennebec River and the sturgeon are jumping straight out of the water.
The season is here for watching sturgeon and the group Upstream Cobbossee has dug out chairs and spiffed them up for people to sit and watch the more than 200-million-year-old species of fish.
Maine has two sturgeons: Atlantic, which can get up to 800 pounds and 16 feet long, and the shortnosed, which reach 4 ½ feet long and 60 pounds, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries. The short-nosed sturgeon is basically unchanged from fossils dated to 65 million years ago.
Gardiner is one of several places in Maine where you can watch the sturgeon jump. Sightings are becoming more frequent in a few of Maine’s rivers, especially the Kennebec. Last year, shortnosed sturgeon were seen spawning in Cobbosseecontee, aka Cobbossee, Stream, which flows into the Kennebec in Gardiner.
Cobbosseecontee is a Wabanaki word for “plenty of sturgeon.”
The best time of year to see the sturgeon is in May and June when they are coming upriver to spawn.
The fish are in the Penobscot, Saco and Androscoggin rivers, too. They can be seen on the Kennebec in Gardiner’s Waterfront Park, the dog park in Augusta at the former Edwards dam site, and downriver near the railroad trestle, according to the Cathance River Education Alliance/Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust.
A professional tour guide has a sturgeon walk in Bath along the Kennebec too.
There also are sturgeon from Penobscot Bay up into the Penobscot River as far as Milford dam, according to University of Maine researchers, who electronically monitor some of the sturgeons’ movement.
Sturgeon are found as well in the St. John River, which serves as the border between New Brunswick and Maine at the northernmost part of the state.
This hike is perfect for sturgeon watching
