She wasn’t exactly catfishing anyone, but a Northcentral Oregon woman who thought a pic of a sturgeon would turn heads on a dating app snagged the come-hither-with-that-illegal-fish glance of state fish and wildlife troopers instead.
Details come from the Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife Division’s August 2025 newsletter, which reports it all began when a Pendleton-based trooper received a tip about a photo of the live fish crammed not so sexily in a bathtub and uploaded to an unspecified online dating platform.
Teaming up with a Hermiston-based colleague, the trooper was able to track down the woman, who had posted the image by phone.
When the troopers called her number, the woman initially provided “various stories” about the fish pic, and when asked specifically about it, she suddenly ghosted them.
Several hours later she apparently had a change of heart, called them back and “confessed to catching the sturgeon,” and then made a date to meet with troopers in person about it.
“She explained she was unaware of the type of fish and drove it home wrapped in a wet blanket in the backseat of her car from Irrigon to Hermiston, where she put in her bathtub,” they write.
That soon led to a web search of a different kind.
“She advised she could not find a large enough fish tank on Amazon, so she loaded it back up in the car and released it back in the river,” troopers add.
So, what the heck was she thinking?!?
“She advised she saw men on the dating app posting photos of fish, so she decided to add a photo of the fish she caught,” they explained.
True, that John Day Pool sturgeon probably was a whole LOT bigger than most if not all of the guys’ fish, but unfortunately for the gal, Oregon’s angling regulations also apply to gestures straight out of a rom-com.
Troopers say they forwarded several charges to the district attorney, including take/possession of a sturgeon, transporting a live fish, angling during a closed season, and no combined angling harvest tag.
No doubt she’d like to swipe left on those.
