186 THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 

CHINOOK SALMON FISHING AT OREGON 
Olt! beg 
By LESTER W. HUMPHREYS in The American Angler 
HE Chinook Indians whose turbulent history still lingers in the 
memories of the pioneers of Oregon, have given their name to 
a salmon of the Pacific. The home of this fish is the big 
ocean; his flesh is a delicious, savory food, and his fighting spirit is 
as fierce and untamed as the Indians whose name he bears. Spurred 
by the instinct for reproduction, the chinook salmon enters the 
Columbia River in countless thousands to seek the shallow spawning 
beds of its upper waters. In the Columbia they are they prey of the 
nets of the cannery fishermen and the annual salmon pack of the 
Columbia is worth millions of dollars. 
A hundred miles from the sea those fish which have escaped 
the predatory nets turn into the Willamette River, and shortly their 
passage is impeded by a waterfall. Here the fish congregate, delayed 
while they hunt for the fish ladder, and here they prove a never- 
ending joy to anglers who delight in a tussle with a heavy fighting 
fish. 
He is a big and kingly fish, the royal chinook salmon. Some- 
times when landed he weighs thirty, forty, or even fifty pounds. 
And sometimes when he is not landed he weighs—well that were 
better left to the imagination, as it usually is. 
He fights. Rarely he shows himself, a flash of shimmering silver, 
in a desperate leap when he tries madly to shake out the strong 
hooks that hold him. More often he charges sullenly about, deep 
down in the river to rub his nose on the rocks and so get free. But 
always he fights, never yielding while there remains the strength 
to fight. Daily during the season he smashes rods, breaks lines of 
wondrous strength, and tears his way to freedom. 
There came upon a day to Oregon from the East a fisherman who 
sang the praises of the muscallonge. Ah! that was the fighter (and 
he paid well merited tribute). This fisherman was invited to Oregon 
City on the Willamette. Oh, yes, he would fish for chinook salmon— 
but what a pity the Willamette did not hold muscallonge! He went 
