A sea monster swims into focus in the James

Matt Balazik fishes for river monsters.

A Virginia Commonwealth University doctoral student in biology, Balazik catches, counts and tracks the rare Atlantic sturgeon in the James River below Richmond.

The sturgeon is a bone-plated, bottom-feeding behemoth that can top 10 feet. It was fished nearly to extinction more than a century ago for its tasty caviar.

Balazik is passionate about the big fish. He sports a sturgeon tattoo on his right forearm. Two sturgeon pictures ride the bow of his research boat.

"They are just so weird," said Balazik, 31, aboard his boat Thursday. "The big ones look like the sea monsters people used to draw pictures of."

Sturgeons swam when dinosaurs roamed the Earth more than 100 million years ago. Today, the fish are so rare that the federal government is proposing to list most East Coast populations as an endangered species. A decision should come late this year.

A decade ago, some experts said the sturgeon was virtually extinct in the James. But in recent years, scientists have found evidence, including baby sturgeons, showing that a remnant population is not only surviving in the James but, against all odds, reproducing.

That's a huge discovery, because no one knows of another spot in the Chesapeake Bay region where sturgeons spawn. If the fish ever return to the bay, they will most likely come from the James.

To aid a sturgeon resurgence, scientists and conservationists from VCU, the James River Association, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other offices have been working on a shoestring budget the past few years to learn the habits of those in the James. Where do they spawn? Where do they spend time?

Answers could lead to protections such as restrictions on dredging or shipping during the spawning season.

One of the top researchers in the effort is Balazik, a tan, soft-spoken man with a Mohawk-and-ponytail-style haircut his wife gave him.

Balazik is a first-rate biologist who combines book learning with fishing skills he got by spending time with watermen, said Greg Garman, director of VCU's Center for Environmental Studies.

"He's VCU's sturgeon guy," Garman said. "He lives and breathes them."

Waterman Kelly Place calls Balazik "the Sturgeon Whisperer." Balazik "seems to have an uncanny ability to discover large numbers of big James River sturgeons unknown to scientists."

Balazik grew up along the James in rural Prince George County just east of Hopewell. As a child, he heard stories of the strange fish. Now, he catches sturgeons to count them and attach tags that help reveal their movements.

The hot spot is between Hopewell and Richmond, where Balazik routinely catches sturgeons that are 6 to nearly 8 feet long.

Just upriver from Hopewell on Thursday, Matt and brother Martin, a volunteer crew member, pulled in hundreds of feet of net by hand. Just when it looked like they would come up empty, Balazik called out, "We got him!"

He wrestled the fish out of the net and into the boat's watery well. As VCU master's student Bree Langford recorded data, Balazik measured: 6-foot-3 and 75 pounds.

Balazik attached two types of electronic tags for tracking the sturgeon, plus a third, anchored under the skin, bearing a number that would identify the fish if it got caught again or killed by a boat. Then he tossed it back.

Balazik caught his largest fish in September 2009 — nearly 8 feet long and about 250 pounds.

In 2007, another biologist got his hands on a James sturgeon estimated at 9 to 10 feet long and 300 pounds. But it got away.

"You could not get its head in a bushel basket — that's how big it was," said Chuck Frederickson, who serves as the lower James' "riverkeeper" — an extra set of eyes on the river.

Balazik thinks the James River giants are not just hanging on but making a comeback. It could be that river improvements, starting with federal clean-water legislation in the 1970s, are giving the fish a second chance.

Sturgeons live in the ocean most of the time, but in spring they return to the rivers of their birth to spawn.

Balazik is pushing the idea — controversial among some experts — that the James River sturgeons also have a "fall spawn" from August into October.

Evidence includes scores of sturgeons he has caught the past three years and boaters' frequent sightings of the fish leaping straight from the water, like missiles, this time of year. A few jumped while Balazik was fishing Thursday.

Balazik came very close to proving his fall-spawning theory Sept. 9 when he caught a "spent female" — a sturgeon with just a few eggs left.

The existence of a second spawning season would be important because boating or dredging restrictions conceivably could be imposed not just in spring but in fall, too.

If sturgeons do make a comeback, watermen might once again catch them for their flesh and caviar, and recreational anglers could go after the biggest fish in the river.

"Catching a 60-pound blue catfish would be child's play compared to catching a 160-pound sturgeon," said VCU's Garman.

A New Kent County resident, Balazik often takes his work home — in the form of sturgeon eggs, sperm and flesh samples.

"The things we keep in our refrigerator, I don't really tell people about," said his wife, Thiwa.

A quality-control coordinator for Virginia Blood Services, Thiwa shares her husband's enthusiasm for the meek monsters of the James.

"It's been here so long, and it's just a really neat-looking fish."

As a 2009 Valentine's Day gift, Thiwa drew the prototype for Balazik's sturgeon tattoo. And the sturgeon pictures on his boat? Thiwa made the stencil.