CANYON CITY – A trio of Dayville residents last week appealed to the Grant County Court for its support in reviving the South Fork John Day River as a fisherman’s paradise.

“There was a time when you could catch 10-12 inch rainbow any day, all day out of the South Fork,” Dan Driscoll told the Court.

Along with Pete Johnson and Jim Gillespie, he asked the Court to back an effort to initiate a fish-stocking program on a stretch of river that flows largely through private and Bureau of Land Management land south of Dayville. They proposed that the County Court:

Request an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife transport permit for stocking 5,000 triploid (non-reproducing) rainbow trout in the river in spring 2009.

Endorse a letter to ODFW requesting $7,500 for the fish stocking.

Request further development of a South Fork River recreational development plan for review and discussion.

Driscoll said the group needs the Court as “a sponsor, an endorser” to proceed. They felt that the county, with its economic development role, would be a good partner in the effort.

The group said the proposal also has the support of various merchants and officials in Dayville. Stocking the river with rainbow trout would be a boost to tourism for Dayville and other Grant County communities and would provide much needed recreational opportunities, they said.

Driscoll said the river was stocked annually in the past, but the state discontinued that after sometime in the 1970s. Today, he said, it’s “a dead river.”

He said that the river is cold enough and saturated with oxygen, making it a good environment to support more fish. However, it currently has minimal populations – “some suckers, squaw fish, crawdads and an estimated 276 adult steelhead and resulting smolts,” according to a report proposing the river restoration project.

Driscoll said stocking with the sexless triploid fish would prevent genetic threat to any native fish stocks in the river. In addition, the number of fish proposed for stocking would not come close to tapping the capacity of the river, he said.

He provided data to the Court showing that similar streams can support 1,000 fish per mile, which would translate into more than 50,000 fish over the 53-mile stretch from Deer Creek to Dayville. The proposal calls for only 5,000 fish, or 10 percent of the supportable numbers, a level that would ensure adequate food supplies for migrating fish, he said.

Driscoll owns the Prairie Springs Fish Hatchery, but he stressed that he’s not getting involved for his own business. He said ODFW may want to use fish from its own hatcheries or other sources, and that’s fine with him – as long as something gets done to restore fishing in the South Fork.

“Our interest is not in selling fish out of our facility,” he said.

The business does see the demand for angling opportunities, however, even though he doesn’t have a public fish pond.

“I’ve got people stopping at our place regularly, asking if they could fish out of our tanks,” he said. “There’s a recreational appetite there that doesn’t seem to be getting fulfilled now.”

County Court members responded enthusiastically to the idea, and voted to move forward with the ODFW transport permit request. They also agreed to express their support with ODFW Commission members.

Driscoll said issues such as access and campground availability could be dealt with in a larger restoration plan. However, he said that initially, there is adequate access for anglers through public lands in the river corridor.