Sturgeon are big fish: 4-8 feet long and around 100 pounds.

"Capturing 'em is really kind of tough. They have pushed one man almost over. So we've got big nets. And it's quite the operation."

Harry Morse is among two-dozen Fish and Game workers who put on knee-high rubber boots and waded in the waters of the Fremont Weir State Wildlife Area near Davis to capture the fish and move them into the Sacramento River.

Morse says when the Yolo Bypass flooded these fish were migrating up river to spawn.

"While the water was high they could make it over the weir which is this concrete barrier and now the waters receded so they're stuck, they can't go back and they can't go forward."

Morse says they have to act quickly because the water the sturgeon are trapped in is warming up and will exceed the temperature the fish can survive in.

Another threat is poachers. Morse says he found a sturgeon yesterday killed with a makeshift spear.