History

Lambert C. Ayers

sturgeon fisherman · active 1905-1906

Ocean City sturgeon fisherman named in the Maryland State Fish Commissioners' biennial report as having landed a five-hundred-pound sturgeon at Ocean City in 1905 whose roe was worth a hundred dollars. The report also cites his opinion that the sturgeon spawns in salt water as freely as in fresh.

In the record (1)

  1. 1906 · 1906-02-17

    State Fish Commissioners: 5,000 sturgeon taken at Ocean City in 1904-05, netting $100,000, worked by twenty firms and two hundred men.

    From the biennial report of State Fish Commissioners Charles F. Brooke and James D. Anderson to the Governor and Legislature, printed in the Messenger of 17 February 1906: "At Ocean City, during 1904-5, it is estimated that five thousand sturgeon were captured, averaging in weight from 100 to 500 lbs. each, and netting one hundred thousand dollars. About twenty firms are engaged in sturgeon fishing at Ocean City, employing about two hundred men and owning thousands of dollars' worth of nets, boats, and other fishing apparatus. The sturgeon is valuable chiefly for the roe, which is separated, pickled and tubbed at Ocean City, becoming the caviar of commerce, a delicacy highly esteemed by the people of Russia and Germany. New York city is the market for caviar, and the meat of the sturgeon is also shipped to that city. It sells at 10 cents to 18 cents per lb. A large sturgeon roe will net the lucky fisherman $75.00 … Lambert C. Ayers caught one at Ocean City last year that weighed five hundred pounds, and the roe was worth a hundred dollars." Sturgeon are taken "in sink nets, and when nets are raised the fishermen stand by with hatchet in hand to kill the fish before it is hauled into the boat, as a cargo of live sturgeon might upset the craft and send all hands to the bottom." The Commissioners had considered artificial propagation and rejected it as impracticable. In March the paper reported Henry Turner & Co. of Ocean City finishing "a very nice floating shanty, and a gasoline launch for the sturgeon fishing business."

    Before it was a marlin town, Ocean City was a caviar town — and the caviar went to Russia.

    Source · checked 2026-08-06