Historic Hood River
Fish Story
7-22-2022
Notes
This image from the circa 1908 promotional brochure claims this fish was caught in the Hood River. This would be in the days of the first Powerdale Dam, which I don’t believe presented much of an obstacle to fish transit. Are there any fish this size in there today?
Dale Nicol
Yes, the largest Chinook I caught this year is 11 1/2 pounds. No Steelhead so far and with the Powerdale dam removed, the river has dramatically changed.
The dam would "stack up the fish", go up the fish ladder to the adipose sorting station ODFW manned. If the fish was "wild", the fish would be returned upriver of the dam and they would migrate to Punchbowl and spawn……end of the upriver migration.
If the fish was a "hatchery" where the adipose fin had been removed as a smolt, they would attach a floy tag, collect data and then via tanker truck, transport the fish to the mouth of the HR and release it. If the fish went up river again and went up the fish ladder for a total of 3 times, these fish would be transported to Lost Lake and released. I don’t recall if they also went to Lawrence reservoir. This program ended when Powerdale was removed.
L. E.
Thanks for the interesting information Dale.
nels
@Dale,thanaks for that info,but why the three times around for the clippedfin fish?
Dale Nicol
nels, that was the rule ODFW had established. Sometimes a returned fish would continue upriver on the Columbia to another river or their actual "home water" to spawn. The purpose of the fish ladder/trap was to gain information about the returning Salmon and Steelhead. Each floy tag had a unique number and there were creel checkers that wanted to document the catch and recover the floy tag. They would also take a scale sample for the fish biologist to study later about the fish.
As we know, the Steelhead and Chinook Salmon returns have greatly diminished over the years for a variety of reasons. The first fish count station on the Columbia is at Bonneville Dam and if you visit, you can see the fish counters ID and count the migrating fish as they ascend the fish ladder.
nels
Thanks Dale. Quite an expeorence to take kids down to watch the fish counters
We have spent so many hundreds of millions, maybe billions to restore the fish and yet the count remains so low. Would like to see total ban for a year or two so the fish can recover. But so much politics involved as well as finger pointing – the Indians, the seals, the ocean trawlers,,the money for tags, the river temperature, etc., etc.,
I understand that one such person fell asleep and fell out of their chair!!
L. E.
Actually, I think the counts are up this year. Not a lot of publicity about it.
Kalley
Thanks so much for the information you gave us Dale. That’s very interesting.
One time I went on a Community ED trip. We walked up the river and saw the spawning areas. Felt bottom boots really help walking in the water and going over rocks in the water.
L.E.
As I was looking through Laraway photos, I came across this one.
https://www.hoodriverhistorymuseum.org?showimage=2618
Some remarkable similarities.