mas River, matching strength and wits with a battling salmon. The Willamette River below the falls at Oregon City is one of the few places in the world where a fisherman can sit in his boat and calmly wait for salmon to bite. This is possible because of the swift current that carries the lure into the face of the up-river bound salmon. The Columbia, the Nehalem, the Umpqua, and the Rogue have spring runs of Chinook salmon, which are usually lured by No. 4 spinners and wobblers. The autumn runs of Silverside salmon entice anglers to coastal streams and bays.
The State Game Commission maintains sixteen fish hatcheries in all parts of the state at which trout are propagated for the stocking of streams and lakes. At these hatcheries millions of fingerlings are developed each year.
In the lower Columbia and Willamette rivers and in the lakes and bayous of Sauvie Island are bass, crappie, catfish, blue gill, and perch. The Tualatin, the Long Tom, and the Yamhill rivers, as well as many coastal and mountain lakes, are stocked with bass. Many vacationists go deep-sea fishing in small vessels off the coast, or angle with pole and line from the sand or rocks for torn-cod, perch, sea-trout, and flounders. Each year the early spring smelt-runs attract great crowds of visitors to the banks of the Sandy.
At the opening of the hunting season, red-capped and red-shirted men flock to forest, mountain, or field. As many as 12,000 deer—the Columbian blacktailed in the western section and the mule-deer in the eastern and southeastern section of Oregon—are killed annually. Elk or Wapiti are hunted in the Wallowa and Blue Mountain region, but antelope are at present protected by law. On the Hart Mountain Antelope Preserve in the south central part of the state are great herds of this fleet little animal. Timber wolves are few but coyotes plentiful. Bounties have decreased the number of cougars and bobcats, but these animals have by no means entirely disappeared. Cinnamon and black bears are most numerous on the western slopes of the Cascades and in the Coast Range.
The State Game Commission operates five game farms from which are liberated yearly thousands of China and Mongolian pheasants. Geese and ducks are found in the entire drainage area of the Columbia and on the marshes and lakes of southeastern Oregon. In the western valleys and upland pastures are pheasants, quail, bobwhites, and Hungarian partridges, while blue and ruffed grouse inhabit most wooded sections of the state.
