OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2016
ASTORIA
Ketch-Em Brand salm-
on eggs were packed
in Astoria from 1920
to 1938, making
use of some of the
billions of salmon
eggs that were
a byproduct of
industrial salm-
on-canning opera-
tions on the Lower
Columbia River.
Matt Winters Collection
The salmon egg capital of the Pacifi c Northwest
almon eggs are astonishing pea-sized
lifeboats, self-contained factories
carrying a new generation of salmon
into the future.
S
Depending on the size of an individ-
ual fi sh, biologists fi g-
ure an adult female
Chinook can average
5,000 eggs. This mid-
July, the number of
returning adult Chinook
salmon counted at
Bonneville Dam is
approaching 235,000.
If half are female, this
means roughly 588 mil-
Matt
Winters
lion Chinook eggs are
bound for spawning
grounds and hatcheries. Maybe 1 out of 2,500
will ultimately survive to adulthood and com-
plete their life cycle.
This compares to annual Chinook returns
of around 7 million to the Columbia River
in the 1800s, generating about 17.5 billion
eggs a year. Early salmon processors usu-
ally disposed of eggs and everything else
they couldn’t sell by dumping it into the river.
People regretted waste even in those lavishly
abundant times, but there was little taste for
salmon caviar in America then — or now —
and it took decades to develop markets for fi sh
byproducts to use for fertilizer, pet food and
other purposes.
Just after 1900, a few entrepreneurs began
processing a fraction of harvested Pacifi c
Northwest salmon eggs as recreational trout
fi shing bait. This unsung chapter in local indus-
trial heritage is well told by Philip Beguhl in
his book “The Art & History of Salmon Egg
Bait.” ($39.95, www.whitefi shpress.com)
eguhl’s book is the result of more than
30 years of collecting research materials,
labels, catalogs, photos and other artifacts.
He told me he went so far as to hire a geneal-
ogist “to chase down living family members
of the salmon egg packing company founders
and operators so I could interview them over
the phone or by letter.”
It’s a wonderful look at a bygone era.
The details he was able to capture from par-
ticipants who may now be deceased are a
cool addition to the history of the Pacifi c
Northwest.
There’s lots of content interesting to those
like me with roots in old Seattle, where sev-
eral egg packers were located. But local read-
ers will be most fascinated by his stories
about the families who packed Ketch-Em,
Star and Spex brand salmon eggs in Astoria
in the fi rst half of the 20th century.
After moving here in 1991, Ketch-Em
Brand labels were some of the fi rst fi sh-
ing industry items I collected — outstand-
ing examples of stone lithography printing.
Ketch-Em eggs were put up by brothers Dick
and Eben Carrurthers to raise college money,
an enterprise that became Astoria By-Prod-
ucts Co., which switched to processing fi sh-
liver oil in the World War II era under Dick’s
son Richard. The whole family is descended
from Eben Weld Tallant, one of the Colum-
bia’s pioneer salmon packers.
Star Brand Salmon Egg Co. was started
by J.W. Peck in Astoria in 1914 and August
Spexarth canned Spex Brand eggs in the
1920s and early-1930s. Across the river, the
Wiegardt brothers in Ocean Park, Washing-
ton, put up an extensive line of different sizes
and qualities of eggs. A few artifacts of the
Columbia-Willapa salmon egg industry can
Columbia River Maritime Museum
This photo in “The Art & History of Salmon Egg Bait” shows the Ketch-Em Brand
salmon egg roe packing line in the 1920s, operated by the Carruthers family. The pack-
ing plant was located on the river front, just east of where the Astoria Bridge now
spans the Columbia River.
It would astound
early egg packers
to learn the jars
and cans they
retailed for 35
cents each can
now cost an avid
collector 200 or
300 times
that sum.
tons, consumed locally, to more than 500
tons, supplying a large demand in all parts of
the world. ... In the hands of the anglers, this
amount represents approximately 1,000,000
bottles of bait, costing the fi shermen about
$350,000.”
It would astound early egg packers to
learn the jars and cans they retailed for 35
cents each can now cost an avid collector 200
or 300 times that sum.
here’s always been class warfare when it
comes to sport fi shing in the West, with
the most stark division between fl y and bait
fi shermen. My Uncle William Giles Winters,
a prominent w est Seattle dentist, was a mas-
ter tier and fi sher of artifi cial fl ies, many of
which I still have. On the other hand, mom’s
side of the family believes in bait — and usu-
ally nothing so fancy as store-bought salmon
eggs. My grandmothers disliked one another.
Flies vs. bait just might be one reason why.
I’m agnostic on the issue, having caught
fi sh on pretty much everything, depending on
who I’m with and whether I’m fi shing for the
art of it, or for dinner.
There’s a funny advertising display pic-
tured in Beguhl’s book of a kid selling a string
of bait-caught trout to a shame-faced fl y fi sh-
ermen who’s gotten skunked and doesn’t
want to go home empty-handed. The fact is
that oftentimes bait is the most effective, and
certainly the least fussy, way of catching a
fi sh with a hook and line.
One of many modern controversies sur-
rounding salmon propagation is the extent
to which fi sh and their eggs are wasted, or
nearly wasted — sold at state hatcheries for
garbage-like prices to the highest bidder.
There are many complexities to this issue that
are far beyond space limitations — or reader
patience — in this column.
Much of the appeal of The Art & History
of Salmon Egg Bait is its portrayal of a more
innocent and simple time, when miraculous
salmon eggs created vast amounts of fun and
delicious catches for generations of fi sher-
men. It would be nice to get past all the poli-
tics and back to something resembling those
glory days.
— M.S.W.
Matt Winters is editor and publisher of the
Chinook Observer and Coast River Business
Journal.
T
B
Philip Beguhl /The Art & History of Salmon Egg Bait
Star Brand salmon eggs were processed in Astoria from 1914 until the Great Depression.
still be found with a bit of effort, while most
others are rare as unicorns. Beguhl has col-
lected them all, or at least has managed to
fi nd images of them.
If there’s anything to discover about
salmon eggs as bait, Beguhl has recorded it.
For example, an article in the August 1925
Popular Mechanics provides a detailed con-
temporary look at the business:
“In the Pacifi c Northwest alone, where the
salmon-egg bait industry is centered, more
than $1,000,000 worth of this kind of lures
are used each season by sportsmen. ... In four
years its manufacture has grown from a few
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher • LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
• CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
• DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
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