

There are hundreds of acres of melon-sized boulders left behind by the flood from Hagerman to Swan Falls.Īt its peak, the Bonneville Flood rushed down the Snake River at a rate five or six times the flow of the Amazon. Giant gravel bars 100 feet high and a mile long are common in the canyon. The flood ripped chunks from the walls of the canyon and carried boulders the size of cars along with it, rolling and polishing them as they tumbled. It filled the entire Snake River Canyon where Twin Falls and Shoshone Falls are today and still spread out across the Snake River Plain. In the 300-square-mile Rupert Basin the water averaged 50 feet deep.
#Sturgeon ufish idaho torrent#
The torrent crashed down the Portneuf River to where Pocatello is today, then sped downstream along the Snake. Once the softer material was exposed, the flow became a flood. The water eroded the pass until it cut through the hard rock and into a layer of softer soil. It was really an inland sea, comparable to one of our modern Great Lakes.Īs the lake level rose, the water began to spill over Red Rock Pass near Preston, Idaho. Yet, it was barely a trickle compared to the Bonneville Flood.Ībout 14,000 years ago, Lake Bonneville covered much of Utah, Nevada, and parts of southern Idaho.

When the Teton Dam failed in 1976, it created a devastation torrent that killed several people and left millions of dollars of property damage. "Where to find Idaho's famed great White Strugeon" This permit records the length of each fish, where it was caught, and the number of hours spent fishing for each.Ĭall now for your sturgeon fishing trip reservations! For that reason the Department of Fish and Game created a mandatory permit system in 1989. A sepia photograph taken in 1898 shows a 1500-pound, 20-foot monster being dragged by a four-mule team onto a bank below Twin Falls.ĭue to increasing pressure, concerns have surfaced about the number of sturgeon fishermen and their relative success. No one disputes, however, that Idaho¡¦s white sturgeon can grow to be stupendously big. Because they are difficult to keep track of, one study will claim sturgeon migrate, the next will insist they are territorial one says they spawn in fast water, the next in deep eddies one says they can live to be fifty years old, the next a century. Sturgeon are bottom-feeders, constantly rubbing against rocks and are therefore extremely resistant to tagging. "This prehistoric monster of the deep is fast becoming one of Idaho¡¦s most popular game fish." - Idaho fish ¡¦n¡¦ hunt Though the fossil record dates back 100 million years to the Cretaceous period, sturgeon are docile, reclusive fish, choosing the Snake¡¦s deepest holes and swiftest water as their homes. According to Fred Partridge, a Senior Fisheries Research Biologist for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, it is almost impossible to draw hard-and-fast conclusions about sturgeon. As fish go, the Idaho white sturgeon is something of a mystery.
