REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. XCIII 



Clackamas Station, Oregon (W. F. Hubbard, Superintendent). 



Owing to the difficulties experienced in past years in constructing a 

 rack across the Clackamas strong enough to withstand the. freshets 

 that occur every fall, and as arrangements had already been made to 

 collect eggs on the upper river, the Salmon Eiver, and the Little White 

 Salmon, it was decided not to attempt collections on the lower liver in 

 the vicinity of the station, but to use the hatchery for hatching and 

 rearing fry from eggs transferred from the substations mentioned. As 

 the season advanced, however, it became ai^pareiit that collections at 

 these points would be light, and 704,000 eyed eggs were purchased from 

 local fishermen. The transfers from other stations were as follows: 

 4,926,000 from the Little White Salmon, shipped between October 2(5 

 and November 8; 16,200 from the Salmon Eiver and 2,000,000 from 

 Battle Creek, received January 0; making a total of 7,640,200 salmon 

 eggs handled at Clackamas. It became necessary during the winter to 

 erect rearing-troughs out-of-doors to care for the fry. 



With the view to increasing the fry-holding capacity of the hatchery 

 a number of experiments were made, and it was found that twice as 

 many eggs could be cared for by suspending baskets of fine-mesh wire 

 cloth m the troughs midway between top and bottom, thus permitting 

 the carrying of two sets of fry in each trough, the usual number on 

 the bottom, and the same number in the basket. These experiments 

 were not made until the season was well advanced, but they demon- 

 strated clearly that the baskets could be used in this way with excel- 

 lent results, though the water supply was unusually bad, due to the 

 washing down of mud by the heavy rain storms during the winter. 



The fry were planted from time to time during the winter and spring 

 in the Clackamas River, the last deposit being made on May IL The 

 total number planted was 7,489,201), showing a loss of only 150,974 on 

 the eggs received. 



Early in March J. W. Berrian, J. N. Wisner, and E. C. Greenman 

 were sent to the falls of the Willamette Eiver, near Oregon Cit}^, to 

 collect eggs of the steelhead. A tent was erected for the accommodation 

 of the men, and water was obtained from a steamboat basin near b}' for 

 supplying the hatching-troughs, erected in the open air near the tent. 



A party of fishermen operating a fish- wheel in the vicinity agreed to 

 turn over all the fish captured by them, and it was arranged so that 

 the fish caught in the wheel would slide through a trough into a live- 

 box anchored in the water. From this box they were transferred to 

 larger boxes, where they were held until ripe. The live boxes were 8 

 feet square and 6 feet deep, constructed with adjustable bottoms. The 

 first fish caught by the wheel was on April 9, and up to May 2 only 61 

 females and 22 males were obtained from that source. As indications 

 did not point to any increase in the catch, steps were taken to obtain 

 additional supplies of fish from other fishermen who were operating 



