When Heck Timeus was a boy living in Agness, Ore., he witnessed in the fall of 1918 an act that he found embarrassing and could not condone. He said to avoid conflict he waited until after his father’s death to talk about it.
The water flow in Shasta Costa creek was low that year due to lack of rainfall. At the base of a small waterfall, a deep pool swarmed with salmon. A shallow riffle ran downstream.
Timeus’ father and a neighbor saw an opportunity to supply their families with fish for the winter. They fastened a section of chicken wire across the riffle, trapping the fish in the pool, where they lowered a charge of dynamite.
After the explosion, they loaded 104 prime Chinook salmon into a rowboat, 52 fish for each family.
Dynamiting for fish was not confined only to the Rogue River.
Timeus said the only redeeming thing he could report was that not one pound of fish was wasted. He recalled a huge supply that winter of smoked, kippered, canned, fried, and other forms of salmon.
Source: Timeus, H.E. ‘Heck’. Rogue River County. The Family of H.E. Timeus, 1990, p. 64-66.
