Salmon fishing over 50 years ago around Sacramento, CA.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

When I was a teenager many people around town had a 12 foot aluminum boat on a trailer with a small outboard motor.

This was because we had huge runs of salmon, steelhead and stripers.

In those days everyone caught fish because there were tons of them.

People came on their vacation from Southern Cal with their travel trailers.



In the 1960s my dad and I were trolling from the mouth of the American River upstream, headed towards the dredger hole.

A few miles up the river we ran into a moving school of rolling salmon that was over 100 yards long.

We went above them to the first bridge we came to and anchored up.

We let out some silver Flatfish plugs and caught about 6 fresh salmon.



There were lots of Stripers, Steelhead and American Shad.


Between dams, logging and AG we pretty much wiped out these big populations of fish.

[Idadon]

I remember those days! My family lived in Lodi in the early sixties. We lived right next to the Mokulamee (excuse the spelling) River about a mile up from the dam that formed Lodi Lake. There was a fish ladder at the dam and us kids used to sit on the side of the ladder and watch the salmon go up. I caught a lot of very big salmon down below that dam where the river ran thru the Woodbridge Country Club golf course. I caught one when I was about 12 that my dad had on 8mm. It was almost as long as I was tall, maybe 50lbs.

We had a little boat and we used to troll the Sac there by the American and further up by the Feather. Used to catch a lot of big stripers back then. My dad had a picture of one he caught that he said they weighed in Rio Vista and it was somewhere in the mid 50's. Wish I still had those pictures. We moved to the Bay Area, Mountain View, in the mid sixties and used to run up by SF to fish outside the Bridge. Caught some good fish out there too. My dad's real passion was flyfishing for Steelhead and Salmon but he was very good at just about everything fishing. I still have his old Sea King pram that he used on the American and Feather as well as the Eel and Smith. That boat is probably as old as I am.

[Rossflyguy]

I'd love to see them remove the dams but with the drought that's never happening. Damn sham that I'll never get to see that in my lifetime. Things have got to change.

[SeanO]

I'd life to see them remove the dams but with the drought that's never happen. Damn sham that I'll never get to see that in my lifetime. Things have got to change.

+1 Ross,

That won't happen anytime soon but there are plans to provide fish passage around dams in the very near future. Almost as good!

Take care,

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

They are taking out smaller dams now that are filled in with sediment.

We need a big water reform in California.

Someone needs to analyze the entire water system.

Who owns the water rights?

Who buys the water?

Where does it all go?