Something fishy

POLSON — Most serious discussions about the Flathead Lake Monster – or any of the world’s lake monsters, for that matter – will inevitably touch upon a common scapegoat: Acipenser transmontanus. Better known as white sturgeon, it’s not surprising that these leviathans inhabiting the depths of the Northwest’s waterways could be mistaken for monsters, as they can reach lengths of more than 12 feet, live for over a century, and swim at speeds of up to 40 miles per hour.

“They’re the perfect suspect,” agrees Barry Hansen, fisheries biologist for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, reflecting on monster myths.

However, Hansen says sturgeon have a bulletproof alibi that eliminates the possibility that they could be responsible for Flathead Lake Monster sightings - they’re not present in Flathead Lake.

“There is no population of them today,” said Hansen, who has not encountered a sturgeon over the course of his career monitoring the lake’s fisheries.

“The nearest populations today are in the lower Columbia (River basin) and the Kootenai River,” Hansen says of the known whereabouts of white sturgeon. “There are a lot of dams in the system that they can’t get past,” he adds.

According to Hansen, only a handful of sturgeon have been reported to come out of the lake, and those have suspiciously been pulled from the lake during contests awarding prizes for big fish – a coincidence Hansen characterizes as “shady.”

“There is strong evidence they were transported in,” says Hansen.

Of those controversial catches, one sturgeon to emerge from the lake has garnered more attention than others, and still captures the public imagination 58 years after coming ashore.

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That specimen was hooked by the late C. Leslie Griffith of Dayton on the night of May 28, 1955 and today handsomely adorns the wall of the Polson-Flathead Historical Museum.

Using eel as bait and a 160-pound line, Griffith hooked the seven-foot, six-inch “denizen of the deep” between Cromwell and Wild Horse islands at around 9 p.m., inciting an epic five-hour tussle that the Flathead Courier recounts took his 16-foot boat for a “ride” of more than eight miles.

After managing to gaff the fish, Griffith finally hoisted the sturgeon into his boat near Big Arm at around 2 a.m., before making the return trip to Dayton with his trophy catch aboard.

At 6 a.m. that morning, Griffith stopped at the Dayton Store and Post Office to enlist the help of store owner Graydon Williams in lifting the fish into the bed of a truck.

In his book, Proud Heritage, longtime newspaper editor and area historian Paul Fugleberg wrote that “Williams recalls blood still seeping from gaff marks” at the time Griffith came knocking. As the handler of local post, Williams was also aware that Griffith had been pursuing sturgeon for a while, as he would occasionally receive pungent shipments of eel to use as bait.

Weighing in at 181 pounds, the sturgeon was declared the biggest fish ever caught in Montana “by a country mile,” according to the museum display where it is now immortalized.

As part of the ongoing fishing tournament sponsored by Big Fish Unlimited, Griffith received a payout of $631.88 – equal to more than $5,000 today, when adjusting for inflation.

Besides the paycheck, news of the historic catch gained Griffith instant notoriety. Doubts about the sturgeon’s origin surfaced as soon as the fish itself, with many skeptics claiming that it must have been deliberately brought to the lake.

Those claims were supported by the findings of a University of Montana biologist who examined the intestinal contents of the sturgeon and found fish species suggesting that it was from another watershed – possibly the lower Columbia or Snake.

The debate over the fish wound up in court, where Griffith provided sworn testimony that he had not planted it in Flathead Lake. The legal battle over proceeds from the display of the sturgeon raged all the way to the state Supreme Court, where it was ruled that Big Fish Unlimited would retain ownership of the specimen, though Griffith was entitled to a portion of associated royalties.

With conflicting evidence and testimony, the investigation into whether or not the fish came from Flathead Lake was ultimately inconclusive. However, the uncertainty led the state’s Fish and Game officials to nix Griffith’s catch from the record books.

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Anglers have never been known for their truthfulness, and Griffith’s controversial sturgeon doesn’t do them any favors in dispelling the stereotype. Whether you believe Griffith or not, the drama surrounding his catch certainly makes for one of Flathead Lake’s most colorful fishing tales.

Bill Olson, the treasurer of the board for the Polson-Flathead Historical Museum, does not have an official stance on how Griffith came to catch the sturgeon, but figures that it’s “certainly possible” that some members of the species famous for its longevity could have lingered after their access to the lake was blocked by dams.

“It’s not too much of a stretch to believe that it was occupying Flathead Lake,” Olson says.

Either way, Olson says the fish has become an interesting artifact that has helped perpetuate the lore of the lake monster.

“This may be what the sightings are made of,” he says.

For although wildlife officials insist there is no evidence of sturgeon in Flathead Lake, that has not quashed the legend of Flathead’s monster for a great many individuals who have spotted unexplained phenomena both before and after the fateful night in 1955 on which Griffith landed his monstrous fish.