Caviar for Christmas

Tampa Tribune December 24, 1932 page 16

This article was in the Tampa Tribune on Christmas eve 80 years ago today. My grandfather Walton "Tink" Fulford made the news because he caught a three foot long Sturgeon while fishing for trout with a net near Cortez, Florida.

No one had ever caught a Sturgeon in the Florida coastal area before and it was certainly a rare fish for him. This fish is also a rarity in that it is the only fish that my Grandfather caught in his almost 60 years as a commercial fisherman that is still around. Since he fished for a living his catch always ended on someone's dinner table. On this occasion he had the fish preserved and it is still on the front porch of his house.

Growing up I'd heard the story about him catching the Sturgeon and walked by it for years but until I found this in the newspaper article didn't realize it had gotten the publicity.

Tink was a pretty good fisherman but not even he could catch them all. The ones he didn't catch reproduced and now there are Sturgeon all along the Florida Gulf coast, even up in some of the rivers. This photo is from the Suwanee River, where they've received some note for jumping out of the water and hitting boaters.