Salmon fishing in Oregon’s southern Grant County had been a thing of the past for nearly 100 years – until a joint effort by the Burns Paiute Tribe and the state of Oregon brought salmon to Malheur Ford outside of Seneca.

Erica Maltz, a fisheries biologist for the Tribe, said bringing salmon to the Malheur River was something the tribe had been collectively working towards for the last 10 years. Finally the idea got some traction.

“Our tribal council highlighted this effort in the annual meeting between the governor and the nine tribes,” Maltz said.

After a decade, salmon fishing in the upper Malheur River is a reality.

Construction of the Warms Springs Dam ended salmon passage to the upper Malheur River in 1919, Maltz said. In 1936, the Agency Valley Dam blocked passage on the north fork. Until the 1950s salmon were still caught in the lower Malheur, but the Snake River dams have now stopped fish long before they get to the mouth of the river near Ontario. While fish barriers along the Columbia, Snake and the Malheur reduce the likelihood of reintroducing salmon, the tribe still dreams of Chinook.

“The first step for restoring a tribal fishery is to give folks hands-on harvest practice with an eye toward restoring cultural connections between the community and these important resources,” Maltz said.

While some members of the tribe may have fished for salmon elsewhere in the state, no living Burns Paiute has fished for salmon on the upper Malheur. To get the tribal members prepared Maltz said members of the Idaho Shoshone-Bannock Tribe came to train the Burns Tribe in native fishing methods.

“They hosted a spear making workshop,” Maltz said. “Seventy people showed up for the two-day workshop – half of those who live on reservation.”

Dave Banks is Oregon Fish and Wildlife’s district fish biologist in Hines, Ore. He said the tribe agreed to not use weirs or to fish at night, but members were allowed to use traditional methods like gaffs and dip nets. The state made concessions for this special fishery by not requiring an angler to have a Columbia Basin Endorsement or a salmon tag to fish for salmon in the upper Malheur.

“The reason we chose to do it that way was to allow people to remove barriers to people going out and fishing for them,” Banks said.

Banks said the salmon stock was brought in from the Dexter hatchery on the Willamette River. Though a non-native strain, it was chosen because it had a low disease risk for native red band trout.

In all 200 fish were released.

East of Seneca the Malheur River begins in Logan Valley where several small streams come together. Banks said the fish were outplanted at Malheur at the top end of a seven-mile long canyon above the Warm Springs Dam and close to land owned by the tribe.

“It was an easy location to get the trucks in to release the fish and for anglers to access,” Banks said.

Only males were put into the Malheur, so there is no risk of Chinook spawning and leaving juveniles stranded and unable to move downstream to the ocean when they smolt.

Following this inaugural year the tribe and the state plan to continue bringing salmon into southern Grant County, but will monitor where the fish go to determine where best to put the fishery in coming years.

Banks said, “We will do it at Malheur Ford for the next two to three years and evaluate. We are not interested in parboiling or torturing them in too warm of water.”

Salmon need holding water and Banks said deep holes are limited near Malheur Ford. After the initial release he said monitors and anglers struggled to find salmon.

“There are some deep holes in the canyon and there is a trail up and down the seven-mile canyon. Maybe the next place look is to walk the trail and look for salmon.”

While the upper Malheur was chosen because it once was a tribal fishing area, the Burns-Paiute Tribe owns property in nearby Logan Valley and manage the land for fish and wildlife benefits, Maltz said, so it’s an area already under regular monitoring.

The Chinook program on the Malheur is funded by Bonneville Power Administration, Maltz said, the agency that funds the tribe’s resident fish work to restore bull trout in the same area.

“Channelization, the effects of splash dams from early era logging and active removal of riparian plants for greater access to the stream left the river with a lack of complexity,” Maltz said.