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EAGLE MOUNTAIN — Greg Poulsen jokes that he usually catches the smallest fish when he's fishing with family and friends.
That all changed earlier this month. The Utah man placed himself in the Idaho fishing record books with an "eye-popping" catch, according to Idaho wildlife officials. Poulsen, of Eagle Mountain, caught a sturgeon that measured 10 feet, 4 inches (124 inches) in length while fishing at C.J. Strike Reservoir in southwest Idaho on Aug. 5, Idaho Fish and Game officials confirmed on Friday. The previous record was an 119.5-inch fish caught in 2019.
"I got really lucky this time," he joked, in an interview with KSL-TV on Tuesday.
Paulsen said he and his family traveled to the reservoir with a guide, expecting to catch fish up to 5 or 6 feet. Then, he caught something that felt much larger.
"It (felt) like you're reeling a refrigerator up off the bottom of the river," he said, recalling the tale. "As soon as we hooked it up and I started reeling it in, the sturgeon came up and jumped out of the water and it was like something out of 'Shark Week.' It was huge."
The guide he was with on Aug. 5 estimated that the gigantic fish weighed about 600 pounds.
Wildlife officials said that the reservoir by the Snake River is known for its white sturgeon; however, fish over 10 feet in size is "exceedingly rare."
"Out of hundreds of fish collected during surveys from the Snake River around C.J. Strike Reservoir, only a handful of sturgeon in this class have been seen," officials wrote in a news release, adding that Idaho Power biologists captured a 131.5-inch fish in 1993 — though, that catch didn't count toward the record book.
They are more likely to be seen at Hells Canyon Reservoir, located along the Idaho-Oregon border northwest of Boise, according to the agency. Even then, only 10 of about 4,000 sturgeon handled during surveys over the past three decades have exceeded 10 feet in length.
Anglers are allowed to fish for white sturgeon only on a catch-and-release basis in Idaho, as the species is listed as endangered.
"Sturgeon around C.J. Strike Reservoir can take 10 to 15 years to reach sexual maturity, while those in Hells Canyon take even longer," Idaho wildlife officials explain. "The slow growth, long lifespans and infrequent reproduction mean these river giants are very susceptible to overfishing, meaning populations can take decades to rebuild."
Contributing: Andrew Adams, KSL-TV
