Oregon releasing chinook in Powder River

BAKER CITY, Ore. — For the fifth time in seven years, anglers will have a chance to catch chinook salmon in the upper Powder River. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife on Thursday will start releasing several hundred spring chinook in the river just below Mason Dam. Salmon once returned in the thousands to spawn in the Powder River and many of its tributaries, but that stopped when the Thief Valley Dam was built near North Powder in 1932. Salmon returned to the river in 2004, when ODFW had a surplus of hatchery chinook gathered from a trap below Hells Canyon Dam. The agency repeated the salmon releases in 2007, 2008 and 2009.