Dea d Fish Used by Sturgeon Fishermen <. It is the practice of many 

 Colvnnbia River sturp;eon fishermenj, above and below Bonneville Dam, to 

 pick up floating dead salmon and use them for baito In order that the 

 record of dead fish in August and September 1946 might be mad© as com- 

 plete as possible and to try to adjust our observations by allowing for 

 dead fish thus used, we decided to interview as many of these fishermen 

 as we could reach. 



The fishermen fishing for sturgeon below the dam reported that one 

 or two dead salmon per man were picked up each day during the period 

 August 15 to September 15« As far as could be determined, there were 

 only ten fishermen who used floating dead salmonj the other six or 

 eight used either lamprey or smelt for bait. It migJit, therefore, be 

 assumed that ten dead fish were picked up each day from mid-August 

 to mid-September by sturgeon fishermen below the damo 



A commercial fisherman who fishes for sturgeon in the vicinity of 

 The Dalles, Oregon, 50 miles above the dam, stated he had seen about 

 ten "floaters" (dead salmon) per day during the period August 15 to 

 September 15, 1946. He did not remove the fish from the water. 

 According to his further statement, there were in September about 15 

 men fishing for sturgeon b etween Lyle and Celilo Falls » He further 

 stated that only one or two fishermen above the dam used dead salmon 

 for bait and that most of the hook-and-line fishing is dona using 

 lamprey or smelt as baito 



SIMN'LA.RY 



1. An incomplete record of mortality of adult salraon and steelhead 

 trout occurring in the Columbia River at Bonne^ville Dam and for a dis- 

 tance of several miles below the dam has been kept by the TI. S. Corps 



of Engineers each year since the dam was completed In 1938 (Appendix, 

 Table 1-8) . 



2, Fish counters at Bonneville Dam kept incomplete records of the 

 injured fish passing over the counting boards in the fish ladders o 

 Observations were conducted in May 1943 and during June, July, and 

 August 1946. No attempt was made to record the total number of 

 injured fish as compared with the total number of fish passing the 

 counting boards. Instead, however, injuries were recorded for only 



a portion of each day's runo A continuous abrasion which extended 

 from the back to the belly was tabulated as a net injury. Often 

 wounds or cuts along the body or head were listed as other injurieSo 

 Since a counter could observe only one side of a fish as it swam over 

 the board, the numbers of injured fish seen were doubtless less than 

 the total number of injured fish passing. In 1946, 6.4 percent of 

 the ntanber of fish in the samples observed showed net injuries and 

 approximately 3.7 percent showed injuries attributed to other causes. 



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