McGregor Park, Rogue River

Yesterday was my first day teaching with Salmon Watch... it was a great experience and I'm looking forward to the rest of the season! It's an educational program through The Freshwater Trust and locally, The Jefferson Nature Center.

Yesterday the program was being taught at McGregor Park, on the Rogue River. but I arrived early to do some exploring. I drove past the turn off for McGregor and the fish hatchery and continued over the bridge and took the next right which follows Butte Creek. A short distance up the road was another bridge crossing the creek. From the bridge I saw salmon building redds and swimming upstream...pretty cool. Unfortunately, photographing this was difficult. I then went up to the Hatchery for a look around.

The Cole M. Rivers Hatchery is located at the base of Lost Creek Dam on the Rogue River. The hatchery is 153 river miles from the ocean and consists of 87 raceways, 26 circular ponds, six adult holding ponds and two rainbow brood ponds. Cole Rivers is the largest hatchery on the west coast, annually rearing 3.7 million spring Chinook, Coho, steelhead and rainbow trout. Visitors are welcome to tour the hatchery daily from 7:30 a.m. until dusk. Dusk is also a great time to fish the "Holy Water", that being the section of river from the Hatchery upstream to the Dam. I've caught some very nice trout there over the years but make sure to dress warm...the water comes off the bottom of the dam and it's cold even when it's 100 degrees in the shade.

Until the next adventure...