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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Columbia Chronicles Real Fish Stories More And More Anglers Going After Huge Columbia River Sturgeon

The white clay cliffs that rise here like castle walls are not the oldest things born from the Columbia River.

Sturgeon came before the floods that carved the cliffs, before the lava that cooled into basalt, before the sage that dots the hills.

Plated with armor and supported by cartilage, not bone, sturgeon came into the Columbia before salmon and other fish and long before man began harvesting the river’s bounty.

They’ve been around at least 400 million years, scientists estimate.

Coveted for their flesh and their eggs, Columbia River sturgeon were nearly fished to extinction shortly after whites settled the Northwest.

They’re still fished commercially and are gaining favor with sport fishermen looking for a hard-fighting alternative to more glamorous native Northwest fish.

“I spent my whole life fishing for salmon. It’s not getting any better,” said Dave Strobeck, who came to the Columbia from Bremerton, which used to be a Puget Sound fishing destination.

At Hanford Reach, the longest free-flowing stretch of the Columbia in the United States, sturgeon still are not as popular a quarry as steelhead or salmon.

But guides such as Dell Burton say more and more of their customers are coming for the largest freshwater fish in North America.

The oldest scientifically documented sturgeon in the Columbia died when it was 102; others undoubtedly have lived longer. They can grow to more than 1,000 pounds and 20 feet in length.

Six- and 7-footers are common. Strobeck said he caught and released one sturgeon last year that measured 9 feet from snout to tail, 3 1/2 feet longer than the legal limit at Hanford Reach.

“We hooked others we couldn’t land,” he said.

Sturgeon fanatic Troy Schumacher carries a Polaroid picture as proof that he caught a 10-footer last year. The snapshot shows him straddling a sofa-sized fish in shallow water.

“I’ve done this since I was 4 years old on this river,” said the 39-year-old Richland resident. “Dad brought us out with bamboo rods.”

Burton considers sturgeon the Columbia’s best prize. A 6-footer can keep a fisherman fighting for an hour and aching for a week afterward. They can empty a reel of 60-pound test line and jump like a foot-long rainbow trout.

Or, fishing for sturgeon can be as thrilling as watching the white bluffs turn to dust, grain by grain by grain.

That’s how it was Wednesday, when Burton threaded a hook through a wad of rotting salmon and squawfish, and used a stout rod to toss it into the deep Columbia. It was 5 a.m., and the sun was topping the bluffs.

By 8 a.m., Burton had given up on the first fishing hole - his favorite - and moved 10 miles upstream, to another favorite spot near an abandoned nuclear reactor.

About 11:30 a.m., a 5-foot sturgeon breached like a whale, 10 feet from the boat.

“We’ll stick around a little longer,” said the guide, spraying a hook with WD-40. Burton, a former farmer, former teacher and former professional coyote hunter, believes the sweetsmelling lubricant attracts fish.

About 2 p.m., at another favorite hole, a rod twitched, and Burton said it might be a small sturgeon testing the bait in its toothless mouth.

“We’ll wait for the rod to double over, then we’ll stick it to him,” he said, killing time telling stale jokes and hunting stories.

At 4 p.m., he moved back to the first favorite spot of the day. The fish still were not interested in eating.

A fishless hour later, Burton surmised that high water caused sturgeon to fast. Dams upstream were spilling water to help save salmon, and the river was higher than he’d ever seen it.

Still, he wonders how a lifelong fisherman with a 21-foot boat, a computerized depth finder and an arsenal of baits could be outsmarted by a prehistoric fish.

“They’re not smart. They don’t even have brains,” he said. “Just a knob on the end of the spinal column.” That, and 400 million years of experience.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color photos Map of Columbia River from Mattawa to the Tri-Cities