Large quantities were shipped to Europe from near Ipswich, Mass., in 1635.
The sturgeon makes most of its growth in salt water but enters fresh-water rivers to spawn, as do the salmon, the shad, and the alewife. Nine weighing between 350 pounds and 600 pounds were landed in Portland, Maine, from the South Channel, Georges Bank, Browns Bank, and Western Bank off Nova Scotia during the period 1927-1935. About 12 feet is perhaps the greatest length to be expected today. But 18 feet, reported for New England many years ago, may not have been an exaggeration, for sturgeon as long as that have been reported from Europe also.
The sturgeon is a bottom feeder, rooting in the sand or mud with its snout like a pig (the barbels serving as organs of touch) as it noses up the worms and mollusks on which it feeds and which it sucks into its toothless mouth with considerable amounts of mud.
From Fishes of the Gulf of Maine by Bigelow and Schroeder (1953) online courtesy of MBL/WHOI http://www.gma.org/fogm/Acipenser_sturio.htm
Sturgeon have the curious habit of leaping out of the water. This may explain why: https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/21/sports/outdoors-the-lofty-mystery-of-why-sturgeon-leap.html
Al Bezanson
Good Morning Gloucester 