Animal Crackers, The perfect snack food.

So, we have been fish people for a little while now. Here is some info about the Bandon Hatchery. The hatchery has a total of 10 tanks, of which six are normally used to raise fish at different times during the year. Three types of fish are raised here during the year. Steelhead Trout, Chinook Salmon, and Rainbow Trout. Annually they raise about 125,000 Steelhead, 500,000 Salmon, and 2,000 Rainbows. In addition to the outdoor ponds there are six indoor tanks and hundreds of incubator tray to start the eggs in.

So, the Rainbow Trouts are called the trophy trouts here, because they are raised to good sized 2 1/2 pound fish, and then they are used to stock several of the local ponds and lakes. These fish are started at another hatchery and raised to almost full-size and then they are transferred to Bandon to get them to full weight and then transfer out from here. They are normally hauled out 150 to 250 at a time every few weeks.

The Steelhead are spawned here at Bandon and are raised for a full year at this facility to be released in the local river in mid-April. The eggs are spawned from adult Steelhead that are taken for various areas of the river. The eggs are then placed in the incubators for several weeks. Once they are ready, they will be transferred into the indoor tanks to be raised for a few months, and then when they are up to size they will be transferred to the outdoor tanks. When the fish are ready to be taken to the river, they will be about 5.6 fish per pound and about 5 inches long.

The Chinook Salmon are also raised here in Bandon completely. They go through a similar process to the Steelhead. They will be transferred out of the hatchery at the end of May.

So, how do you move 125,000 fish in a reasonable amount of time? Well you use some 2,300 gallon tanker trucks, and you use a fish pump. A fish pump, you say? Yes, it is just like a fire pump, but the fish can go through it without harm. It is quite a process that takes two days to complete and allot of careful preparation. The steelhead trout are the most difficult fish to transport of the three that they do transport. They are fairly fragile at this stage and they are large loads as well. Most of the tanker loads were between 1,800 and 2,400 pounds of fish. So you do the math 5.6 fish per pound, that is allot of fish.

Here are some photos of the equipment. This is the fish pump. The fish get sucked up through the pipe into their pond, they pass through the pump and up to the separator at the top. The fish go into the truck, and the excess water goes back into the creek. To load 2000 pounds of fish takes about 10 minutes.



These are the two types of tankers we used. The International straight truck is Bandon’s tanker. It holds 2,300 gallons of water in a single tank. The tractor trailer is the regional office truck and it has two 1200 gallon tanks. In this case, it just meant that we had to load two separate tanks, but it can be nice for two different types of fish, or two loads of fish that are going to different locations. The tractor trailer looks new, but it is actually a 1991.





Next I have a few short non-narrated movies of the steelhead. There are 50,000 of them in this pond, so it is interesting when it is feeding time. This is just a few handfuls of feed, imagine what it is like when you throw out 25 pounds of feed on the water.

And lastly this is what the confused little fish do with their spare time. They got the right idea to head up river, but too bad for them these are just the water intakes for the pond. Nowhere to go from here.

So, that is it for now. This week, I expect my normal spelling checks and grammer corrections from the gallery, but I am sure that Greeson will fully explain everything that I got wrong.

R.J.

Goodbye Wyoming, Hello Oregon

Well our time in Wyoming has ended and it is tome to head west to see the ocean once again. We are going to Bandon, OR to work as volunteers at the Bandon Fish Hatchery for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Back to the RV living for the summer. We loaded up the RV and the Honda with all of our stuff planning for the drive west. The plan for the trip was a three day drive across Rt. 80 and 84 and then down the coast to Bandon. Of course, we had beautiful weather the entire time we were in Cheyenne, that of course ended the day we left. The weather on the departure day was blustery at best, but we took off. The roads were not too bad, as long as you drive like a reasonable human you would be fine. So after several hours of 35 mph driving we were sent off the interstate due to an accident ahead. So we camped out in a truck stop for a few hours. So finally we got out of there and we were ready to put some miles behind us. Well, we made it to the next exit and we were sent off again. This time the town (and by town, I mean an exit that 150 people live at) was filled with hundreds of trucks and it didn't look good. So we found a place to park and we went into a gas station to get an idea of what is going on. There was a 10 car pileup ahead and the road would likely be closed for the night. And the east bound 80 was closed as well, so we were stuck in this town for the night. Time to settle down and get some sleep. We knew it would be cool evening, but when we woke up at 4AM and it was 5 degrees, we were ready to go right now. We look and the road is open, so we started up and got heat back into us. The rest of the trip was uneventful. We got to see 3 new states for us. We had never been in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington so we were eager to see them all. We spent the night in ID near Bosie and the drive down the Columbia River along Rt. 84 was incredible. While we were driving down the river we crossed over to the Washington side and we got a view over the river as well.

We rolled into Bandon on Sunday afternoon and we work on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays and the rest of the week is ours for exploring. So we will have some areas to see and checkout. Here is a few photos of the Hatchery.