fish migration. The construction of the impassable power dam 

 near the mouth of the river in 1915 was the final hlcm in 

 reducing all of the runs t& a negligible quantity. 



Prior to the inception of the Grand Coulee fish maintenance 

 project some of the diversions in the Methow watershed had been 

 screened, and the power dam had been removed. The Methow was 

 not included in the project fisheries transplantation program 

 until 1941, as the screening program was still under way. 

 However, in 1941 a program of annual liberations of artificially 

 propagated chinook salmon and steelhead trout was begun in the 

 Methow River. 



The main stem of the river furnishes fair fishing for Dolly 

 Varden, rainbow, and cutthroat trout, and is rather heavily fished 

 by sportsmen. Chubs, suckers, whitefish, and Souawfish are abundant 

 in most of the stream. 



Although the water of the Methow River is used extensively for 

 irrigation, it still is an important, usable stream, both as a 

 spawning and rearing area and as a migration route between the 

 Columbia River and the numerous tributaries of the Methow River 

 system. 



The Okanogan River has its source in Canada, in Lake Okanogan, 

 and flows south through Lakes Skaha, Vaseaux, and Osoyoos, Lake 

 Okanogan is about 65 miles long and from 1 to 4 miles wide. Lake 

 Skaha is about 8 miles long and 1 to 2 miles wide, while Lake Vaseaux 

 is only about 3 miles long. The lowest lake in the series, Osoyoos, 

 is about 8 miles long. The International Boundary divides Lake 

 Osoyoos into two approximately equal parts, the lower half being in 

 the United States. From Lake Osoyoos the Okanogan River flows about 

 80 miles south to discharge into the Columbia River near Brewster, 

 Washington. Most of the broad Okanogan Valley, both in the United 

 States and Canada is cultivated. 



The Okanogan was an important Indian fishing ground until fairly 

 recent times. As late as 1931 the natives built brush fishing weirs 

 across the lower part of the river near Monse, Washington, trapping 

 practically all adult salmon going upstream. This type of fishing, 

 however, was not carried on continuously in the Okanogan. In the 

 upper section of the river, in Canada, large numbers of bluebacks 

 were taken by the natives on the spawning grounds. The great 

 depletion of the large early-day runs of both chinook and blueback 

 salmon must be attributed mainly to a combination of over-exploita- 

 tion by the commercial fishery in the lower Col\jmbia and the destruc- 

 tive Indian fishery. 



A counting weir was operated at the Oroville mill dam from 1935 

 to 1937, inclusive, for the purpose of ascertaining the number of 

 salmon that migrated beyond that point to spawn. The resultant 

 count was 264 bluebacks in 1935, 895 in 1936, and 2,162 in 1937, 



81 



