North American Sturgeon

The Pacific sturgeon Acipenser transmontanus is most commonly indigenous to the Northern Pacific Coast, and most prevalent in the Snake, Sacramento, Columbia, and Willamette Rivers. The Pacific sturgeon is considered the largest of all the domestic sturgeon, weighing as much as a thousand pounds in the wild, with the female maturing at age 10 or 11. The caviar derived from the transmontanus overall is medium to large in grain, light grey to black in complexion, and generally very mild in flavor.

Shovelnose (Scaphirhynchus plantorhynchus), also known as hackleback, are the smallest domestic sturgeon, reaching upwards of about one meter. They are mostly populated in the midwest of the United States. The shovelnose weigh up to twenty-five pounds, and the female begins to produce caviar around the age of seven, offering a small- to mid-sized, rich and flavorful sturgeon caviar.