Opening Day of Trout Season, 1958

This photograph accompanied an Oregon Journal article, “Living’s Rough, Fishin’s Easy on Lakes,” by Tom McAllister, on May 25, 1958.  In the photo, cars, trucks, and recreational vehicles crowd the Hot Springs Campground and the shore of East Lake in the Deschutes National Forest on the opening day of lake trout season.

Because East Lake is high in the Cascade Mountains, access has historically been largely limited largely to automobile owners.  The first auto road reaching East Lake was constructed by the U.S. Forest Service in 1913.  By the mid-1950s East Lake was accessible by a paved, two-lane road maintained by the Forest Service, making it a popular fishing destination.   Good roads also allowed for the towing of house trailers.

Like other lakes high in the Cascade Mountains, East Lake did not support any fish populations until Americans artificially stocked them with fish desirable to sport-fishing anglers.  Rainbow trout were the first fish introduced into East Lake in 1912, but since then the lake has also been regularly stocked with brown trout, brook trout, Atlantic salmon, and kokanee.  The lake itself is one of two naturally-formed lakes situated inside the caldera of the Newberry Volcano.  Although the lake is a popular fishing destination, since the mid-1990s a fish consumption advisory has been issued by the state of Oregon warning people to avoid eating fish caught there.  According to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, “the source of the mercury…appears to be natural soils, rocks and artesian springs feeding the lake.”

Written by Joshua Binus, © Oregon Historical Society, 2005.