It's not every day that a fisherman can grab a sturgeon by the tail.
City resident Gene Lalli still remembers the day he did so, even though it was 10 to 12 years ago.
"It was exactly 42 inches,"?Lalli said of the sturgeon. "Back then, if a sturgeon was 36 to 42 inches it was legal to keep.
"We kept it, and we barbecued it. It's a very delicious fish," Lalli said.
He netted the sturgeon out of Oregon's Columbia River gorge, a beautiful place inhabited by eagles and egrets, he said.
The gorge also is patrolled by police boats filled with officers who "check every boat" to make sure that anglers follow the rules, Lalli said.
Green and white sturgeon both inhabit the Columbia River, according to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. White sturgeon are said to be more common - and tastier - than their green counterparts.
Lalli went fishing in Oregon with his daughter Linda's late husband, Vern Crawford.
"My wife and I made a lot of trips back and forth," he said. "She and I saw every national park in the U.S., except for Sequoia. It was quite an experience."
On another of their trips out west, Lalli caught a 28-inch-long steelhead trout in the Nestucca River in Oregon.
"A steelhead is a fish that does not eat bait. It comes from the ocean, swims up the river and spawns. But they don't bite, they don't eat. They spawn and they go back to the ocean," he said.
Because they aren't interested in feeding, "they are very hard to catch,"?Lalli said. "They bump into the hook. I caught him in the cheek."
At the dock, bystanders took a photo of Lalli with his catch, which he later ate, also barbecued. "It was a pretty good catch."
