The fifteen mile reach of the Powder River from Baker City upstream to Mason Dam is generally known by fisherman as a good place to spend a warm summer morning casting for ten to 14-inch rainbow trout. The cool waters released from Phillips Reservoir in the summer months make this a very pleasant experience enjoyed by many. Add the release of a few hundred spring chinook salmon and a quiet morning of trout fishing could become a charge downstream to keep up with whatever happens to be pulling your lure downstream at a rapid rate!
Spring chinook, once native to the Powder River and many of its tributaries, are now extinct in the basin due to barriers and habitat degradation. But that does not mean the Powder River can’t have a fishery for them.
In recent years returns of both wild and hatchery-origin spring chinook have increased dramatically in chinook bearing streams in northeastern Oregon. In fact, returns of hatchery fish have been so good in some locations that their numbers are in excess of what is needed to provide fisheries and hatchery broodstock, their primary purpose.
Taking advantage of this abundance, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has taken a novel approach in the Powder River, creating a fishery that would otherwise not exist. By capturing surplus chinook salmon at trapping facilities such as at Hells Canyon Dam, ODFW can transport these fish to areas where fisheries for salmon do not exist, provided the release does not cause problems for native fish or private landowners.
In 2004, ODFW put this idea on the ground by experimenting with transporting adult spring chinook captured by the Idaho Power Company at Hells Canyon Dam and releasing them into the Powder River between Baker City and Mason Dam. This experiment was implemented after the Baker County Commissioners gave their nod of support. As expected, there were some public concerns about releasing spring chinook in a stream where they had been absent for nearly 100 years.
The experiment was a resounding success. Of the 243 adult chinook released in the river, an estimated 72 of them were caught by anglers. There were no apparent negative consequences.
Surpluses of hatchery spring chinook allowed ODFW to provide this unique fishing opportunity again in 2007 and 2008 by releasing 321 chinook into the Powder River. In 2007, 213 surplus hatchery-origin jack spring chinook salmon were trapped at a weir in the Imnaha River, then transported and released into the Powder River. In 2008, 108 adult salmon were trapped at Hells Canyon Dam, transported and released into the Powder River.
Local anglers have been very appreciative of this unique fishery opportunity made possible, in part by angling license dollars. While the fish are reared in hatcheries operated by the federal government and the Idaho Power Company, planning of the fishery and transportation of the fish are funded by license dollars. Partnerships like these stretch angling license dollars to accomplish more things for the angler.
