Random Lake Sturgeon Fact: The great size and power of the lake sturgeon was one of the causes of its undoing. In early days the commercial fishermen of the Great Lakes destroyed them because they ripped and tore their nets. Later it became valuable and is now the highest-priced freshwater fish on the market. Becoming scarcer and scarcer in spite of many years of legal protection, the present annual catch from the Great Lakes is less than one percent of the amounts taken formerly.