4 - Port Orford News, Thursday, October 2, 1969__________ __
First Salmon R eleased From Elk R iver H atchery
WITH SCREEN in final position, Smith watches young salmon leaping about in confusion. About 40, 000 chinook are
confined here, ready for pumping into truck.
FIRST STEP in loading Chinook salmon smolt from rearing pond is getting pump lines ready. Elk River Hatchery Supt.
Reed White, top left, and hatchery foreman Lyle Curtis, are shown placing "catch box" over hole in refrigerated ¿Aegon
Fish Commission truck. Young chinook are sucked from pond through lower pipe, travel through pump and are pushed to
truck through pipe at left. Pipe at top right permits water to escape back into rearing pond.
FOREMAN CURTIS pulls screen from front of suction box ready to begin loading salmon. When truck is full, screen is
pushed back into position to shut off salmon intake.
BEGINNING of "round-up" of young salmon, hatcherman Craig Smith, left, and White drop net and force fish down
length of rearing pond around end and back to holding position.
FINAL DRIVE sees Curtis bringing up rear pushing a holding screen that will keep chinook smolt in small area near pump.
I
I
FISH TRAP box on top of truck is being watched by (friver Bill Tansley, Alsea Hatchery, as chinook smolt drop into
truck. Fish enter at right end of box onto screen that allcxvs rearing pond water to filter through and drain back to pond
through hose at left.More than 20, 000 salmon were loaded in about ten minutes by use of the new-type pump. Truck
load of fish were then transported to Brookings for release in Jack's Creek up the Chetco River.