Columbia River drainage below McNary Dam 

 and was extended in 1957 to include areas 

 above McNary Dam. Present emphasis is 

 centered on the Willamette River systenn and 

 the area above McNary Dam. Current ac- 

 tivities are stream clearing, fishway con- 

 struction, screening, and an evaluation of 

 hatchery production. 



Largest expenditures under the Program 

 were for artificial propagation facilities 

 (Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, 1960). Im- 

 provements made on streams of the Columbia 

 River Basin are listed in the Annual Progress 

 Reports of the Columbia River Fishery De- 

 velopment Program (Fish and Wildlife Serv- 

 ice, 1952- 57; Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, 

 1958, 1960, 1961, 1964). 



The present report condenses information 

 from various sources. Maps show the general 

 location of past and present spawning areas. 

 Other information is tabulated. Fishery sci- 

 entists and administrators associated with the 

 present Fish-Passage Research Program have 

 already used information from the manuscript. 

 On the basis of this use they have expressed 

 the need for published summaries that are 

 comprehensive and cover the entire Columbia 

 River Basin. 



This report on Chinook salmon is intended 

 to fill that need. A second report is to cover 

 sockeye salmon (O. nerka ), coho salmon (O. 

 kisutch ), chum salmon (O. keta ), and steelhead 

 trout (Salmo gairdneri). 



SPRING- AND SUMMER-RUN CHINOOK 

 SALMON 



Chinook salmon in the Columbia River were 

 divided arbitrarily into three runs- - spring, 

 summer, and fall- -on the basis of timing of 

 returns from the sea to fresh water (table 1). 

 Spring- and summer- run chinook salmon are 

 treated as one group in this section and the 

 fall run as a separate group in the next. 

 Spring and summer runs of chinook salmon 

 had to be combined because of the difficulty 

 of separating the two groups on their principal 

 spawning ground- -the mid-Columbia tribu- 

 taries. 



Characteristics of the major runs of chinook 

 salmon (table 1) are listed in terms of type of 

 spawning stream, spawning period, average 

 size, and period of migration. The average 

 weights were calculated from samples from 

 the commercial fishery by the O.F.C. (Fish 

 Commission of Oregon) for 1959-62 (Pulford, 

 Woodall, and Norton, 1963). Spawning areas 

 and the abundance of spring- and summer- 

 run chinook salmon will be discussed in the 

 following sections. 



Spawning Areas 



As noted in table 1, spring chinook salmon 

 generally spawn in small- and medium-sized 

 tributaries of the middle Columbia River, 

 whereas summer chinook salmon generally 



Table 1. — Characteristics of spring, sunnier, and fall runs of Columbia River ohinook salmon 



