This is a REAL fish

We found a perfect Oregon story at the bottom of a deep rabbit hole

You know how it is. You’re surfing the InterTubes, minding your own business, and you see a post that grabs your attention. That post leads to another, and another, and soon you’re falling down the rabbit hole. That’s what happened to us, but the fall was so interesting and uncovered such a wonderful Oregon story that we just HAD to share it with you. It all started with a post of a short video of a prehistoric monster sliding into the water…

In 2019 Jim Houser retired from Hawthorne Auto Clinic, the auto shop he’d owned since 1982. (It’s a great shop, wonderful people, and you should give them a call if you can’t come to us!) Anyway, we’ve followed Jim on Facebook quite happily and without complaint until April 19 when he posted the hideous video at right. No warning, no apology, just this ghastly clip purporting to be a Giant Sturgeon instead of the watery spawn of Satan. Of course we wanted to share it as quickly as possible! But not everything on the InterTubes is as it seems and we were suspicious. Could it be photo fakery of some kind? A closeup of a small eel or something superimposed on an outdoor background? Digital vapor? We started looking and found something we did not expect. Giant Sturgeons are totally real! Not only that, there are many such videos because there are ACTUALLY PEOPLE WHO INTENTIONALLY GO OUT LOOKING FOR THESE THINGS! We found a stack of them on YouTube, mostly from Great River Fishing Adventures which organizes fishing trips in the Fraser River Canyon in British Columbia. There’s a few pictures from their PR reel below. It’s all catch-and-release, and the fish are tagged for tracking when caught. They estimated the fish in the pictures was 140 years old, but the only thing anyone needs to know is on their website: “there are fish in this river that can exceed 13ft and weigh more than 1500lbs”

So OK, we messaged Jim that we’d confirmed his fish story and were prepared to go on about our day when Andrea D. chimed in to introduce us to Herman the Sturgeon, which drove us deeper down the rabbit hole. Here’s a little clip from Herman’s web page at the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife…

“He is an Oregon icon – Herman, the sturgeon, the state’s most famous fish. At 11 ft. long and nearly 500 lbs., Herman is not only one of Oregon’s most distinctive aquatic characters- some even consider him the unofficial state fish.”

But we still hadn’t hit the bottom of the hole because there was much more to learn about this aquatic Oregonian. Did you know Herman…

Went to the Oregon State Fair for 50 years?
Starred in a National Geographic documentary?
Was kidnapped from his pond in 1983?
Was injured in an attempted kidnapping?
Was assaulted and stabbed with a knife?

And although Herman is guestimated to be about 80 years old, he’s completely hip to today’s tech. You can connect with Herman on his Facebook page, his Twitter account, or visit him in person (in fish?) at his permanent home at the Bonneville dam. (We called to check, and as of 4/21/22 Herman was still alive!)

So follow us down the rabbit hole and get to know one of the most famous Oregonians you’ve never heard of!