by Gildart, Bert

Copyright T L Enterprises, Inc.

The depths of the Snake River in Hells Canyon provide a haven for the elusive creatures.

“IT’S A HUGE ONE,” SAID GABE CASSELL OF Snake Dancer Excursions, as he helped my wife, Janie, plant the hook. “And when I say big,” emphasized Cassell, “I mean 250 to 300 pounds.” Riveting his attention on Janie, who weighs in at some undisclosed amount between the lower and upper figures - divided by two - he commanded, “Now, you bring ‘em in!”

We were talking about sturgeon, and these are indeed huge fish. And they can be hard to land. But here in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington’s Hells Canyon - the deepest canyon in all of North America - portends for a favorable outcome were all there. On this early day in May, the temperatures were hovering around 75°F, die skies were faultlessly blue and up on the hill the chukars were clucking. It was a day to draw to, and would be even more so if Janie could land the incredible behemoth now putting some new cricks in her back.

Earlier in the week we had docked our RV in Clarkston, Washington, at a perfect location - the Granite Lake RV Park. Located at the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers, the campground was situated so that each morning we could actually see salmon finning the waters.

Indeed, Hells Canyon is distracting, essentially because it’s beautiful, historic and cataclysmically deep. In fact, its depths exceed those of the Grand Canyon. At that point, Hells Canyon is bound by He Devil Mountain, which looms to 9,400 feet, and then plunges 8,000 feet from its summit to the mouth of Granite Creek. As an ongoing work of the ages, the river is wild; in fact, it is so turbulent that Cassell had to work for 365 eight-hour days to get a license for die Snake River. That’s because the river is so hard to navigate, something not all sturgeon fishermen and women appreciate.

As if to punctuate that thought, we came suddenly to an incredible set of rapids formed by a jumble of rocks sweeping away from the shore. The boulders disappeared dangerously close to the middle, which Gabe circumspectively flanked with his boat. Gabe said that each year the Snake claims a few boats, but never has it taken one of his.

After successfully navigating the rapids we entered an area even more austere in appearance. Here, the walls jutted straight up. As we proceeded, the well-versed Captain Gabe pointed at a bank of volcanic ash, blown in, he said, after Mount Mazama (the remaining caldera now engulfing Crater Lake) erupted almost 6,000 years ago. This is wild country; impossible, one might think, to generate a living. Nevertheless, human existence here dates back 8,000 years and ranges from prehistoric tribes to Chief Joseph’s band of Nez Perce.

Human history also includes gold miners and late180Os homesteaders. In fact, many of the Hells Canyon homesteaders survived in large part off sturgeon, catching truly record specimens that may have exceeded 1,500 pounds, Because virtually all these monsters are gone, today, regulations stipulate that any sturgeon caught in the Snake River must be released. One day soon, biologists hope many such huge fish will again bend the rods of anglers fishing in Hells Canyon, though it may take a little more time.

Sturgeon are the largest present-day freshwater fish known to man. They grow slowly but may live for 100 years or more. Because they have remained relatively unchanged since first appearing, they have a Mesozoic appearance. In fact, sturgeon are the modern relies of an ancient group offish that includes the paddlefish, another primitive survivor that is also difficult to land - and sometimes difficult to find.

As we powered upriver searching for sturgeon, the county only seemed to grow wilder. We passed the Grand Rhonde. We gunned our way through Wild Goose Rapids; then above that we came to Cache Creek Ranch, where we met a couple serving as volunteers. Mounted on the walls of their quarters were historic photographs of huge sturgeon, some of which were caught 100 years ago in the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area, which they border and which we soon boated into. Here, in the rec area, we passed turkeys, deer, geese and, then, a band of bighorn sheep. A mile later, we came to a variety of waters, some of which Cassell hoped would produce huge sturgeon.

Sturgeon, according to Cassell, have a habit of stopping for days in an eddy and swimming along a bank, sometimes exposing their thin tails and their dorsal fins. Slowly they move until they reach a point where the current leaves the bank; then they drift over sideways into the current and drop back to the foot of the eddy, only to repeat the process. Later, they might enter the deep pools and, when they do, they generally go deep. Accordingly, Cassell baited the hook with what he considered the best of all deep-pool baits: the head of a rainbow trout. Alan Liere, our onboard humorist, joked, saying that the beautiful rainbow trout we had been consistently catching were nothing but trash fish, good only as “sturgeon bait.”

“Blasphemy,” we countered, but obviously not to the dedicated sturgeon angler, something we suspected we could become - with proper encouragement from the gods.

Everyone wanted to catch one of the giants, so the only fair way was to rotate, with each person taking a timed turn - and, sometimes, pulling in some respectable sturgeon of 50 to 100 pounds. Then came Janie’s turn. The only woman aboard, as fate would have it, she hooked a fish immediately. Because the fish took the bait and then sulked, Cassell believed she’d hooked a large one, and, in a roundabout way, said as much. “Huge ones control you I” exclaimed the generally soft-spoken guide. “Its never ever the other way around.”

For almost a full hour, Janie battled the fish, using the requisite deep sea fishing technique. First she lowered the rod then reeled furiously. Sometimes she gained line, though just as often she lost, for the fish was as determined to find freedom as she was to land it. But Janie prevailed amid cheers, encouragement and personal pride. An hour later, she brought the fish to shore - where it took three men and one woman to position the still-rebellious fish for examination.

Categorically speaking, sturgeon are an anachronism, a study in prehistory. Along its back we could see several rows of bony plates, serving as a form of armor. Near its mouth we could see four sensory “barbells,” which served as an aid in locating food on the liver bottom. But more to the point, the fish was huge, tipping the scales at 295 pounds and measuring 7 feet, 10 inches long. Too bad, but it would have to be released, leaving only pictures to document her catch.

The next day my good wife was the talk of the campground. Although she had no fish to show, none doubted her story, for she was stooped with cricks in her back. But almost paradoxically, she wore a smile as wide as Hells Canyon is deep.