Every once in a while, you encounter something that blows your mind.

This happened to me while I was working working on a story in the Columbia River Gorge this weekend –  we stopped by the Bonneville Fish Hatchery, and met this guy: a white sturgeon.

These ancient fish can be traced back to the Jurassic Era (as in Jurassic Park – they’re a dinosaur fish!).  They commonly reach 9 feet in length in the Columbia River, but can grow to a whopping 20 feet in and 1,800 pounds. That makes it the biggest fish I’ve ever seen outside of the tropics.

When you visit the sturgeon tank, you get an underwater perspective of their girth (along with a few good-sized salmon for scale).

While I’d heard of sturgeon, seeing one fact-to-face was another matter entirely.  The was the first time I had actually witnessed a big one, and it took my breath away.

This is what they look like from above.  If you saw one from your boat, you’d swear it was a shark.  Believe it or not, this isn’t even the biggest one.  There’s an even bigger sturgeon hiding somewhere in the pond, but we only caught glimpses of it.

Sturgeon feel for food at the bottom of the river using hair-like projections called barbels.  Instead of scales, they have tough skin and armor-like plating.  They are prized for their caviar so catches are strictly limited.

If you’re traveling through the gorge, a visit to the Bonneville Fish Hatchery should not be missed.  For one thing, it’s free. In addition to the sturgeon tanks, there are several pens where you can feed the young salmon and rainbow trout.

The hatchery can be found a few miles from Multnomah Falls 15 minutes from Stevenson, WA.