The fish counting office for the south side of Bonneville Dam is located on the lower level of the main Visitor Center on Bradford Island. The office is a small but comfortable room off the main fish ladder viewing gallery, which has many large windows where visitors can watch migratory fish move upstream.
On one visit in 2006, the counter had left the office door open so people could see him at work. The window into the ladder that you see here is the same one that you see in the Bonneville fish ladder cam.
The counter has a keypad in front of him with buttons for the various species of fish. This photo was taken in early June at the peak of the shad run, and shad are what you see in the window. So many shad pass through at a time that the keypad has a special 'shad' button that allows him to count ten at a time. Some days over 100,000 shad will pass through Bonneville's two counting stations.
The other prime time to visit is the first week of September, when the fall chinook run peaks. A visit to the official fish count page will help you decide which days are best for a visit to see the maximum amount of activity. A graphing function on that site lets you select a fish specie, then shows you graphically how that particular run is moving toward or away from the peak of the run.
All materials on this site are copyright 1992-2012 by Doug Gorsline / ashcreekimages.com. Please email me at douggorsline@comcast.net
