Feather River Vintage dive report-9/11/10 (NorCal)

[Fish&beer]

Well I just had to post a report of our last vintage dive on the Feather River in Oroville, CA. It was MAGIC! It was during the annual salmon run. I met with duckbill & scubadiverbob, his son, and a few others. They warned me on how great it would be, but until you actually dive with thousands of salmon waiting for the fish ladders to open, it is impossible to describe.

duckbill was using his Mistral(yellow hoses) & yellow military harness. scubadiverbob was using his DA w/accessories and I had my trusty RAM. We made two wonderful dives and reached a depth of 33 feet near the dam. Water temp was a nice 53 deg, vis 12-15 feet. On both dives we would sit on the bottom and marvel at the sight.

I brought my newly homebuilt video camera/housing and shot video on our first dive. But it was a bummer that the camera battery died before making our 2nd dive. I'm a dork forgetting to bring my spare battery, but fun was had by all. Next year I hope more vintage divers can join us for this special event.

I made a short video of our first dive and the link is below, enjoy.


YouTube - Feather River Salmon Run 2010

 

[Paladin]

How did you make your housing? I'd like to make one for my little palmcorder.

 

[Peter_C]

So just how does one find out when these runs are happening? I would be interested in checking it out next year. I assume by this weekend they have opened the ladders up? Which dam is that?

BTW I am not vintage but do dive with a Freedom Plate...

 

[Fish&beer]

How did you make your housing? I'd like to make one for my little palmcorder.

Paladin954 I made my housing out of plexiglass. I have made three housings before all made with pvc pipe. All of them worked great, but I decided to build this one out of plexi instead. I made measurements of the camera and had my local plastic store TAP Plastics cut them out for me. It was easy to glue together. I needed full use of the camera controls so I just used some control glands from my old Ikelite housings. My control rods were made from 1/4 " brass rods from the hardware store. Pretty simple but it took a little time to measure and re-measure everything. I put a dome port on it since I have a real wide lens on it. The dome was purchased from a compass repair store, much cheaper that buying from some of the housing manufacturers. If you look up "do it yourself underwater housings" on U-tube, there are plenty of self help videos that might interest you. There is also the "Do it yourself" section here on the board that might help you also.

Hoped this helped

 

[Fish&beer]

So just how does one find out when these runs are happening? I would be interested in checking it out next year. I assume by this weekend they have opened the ladders up? Which dam is that?

BTW I am not vintage but do dive with a Freedom Plate...

Peter_C - The person to answer your question would be duckbill on SB. He has made many dives on the Feather River in Oroville and is more of an expert than me. I do know though that they will open the fish ladders in a few days though as the Salmon Festival is this weekend I believe. Another place to find out about the Salmon run is the Feather River Nature Center located on Old Ferry Road in Oroville. In fact we entered the river and made our dives right next to the nature center. The small dam/fish ladder is just upstream from there. But once again duckbill could fill you in.

 

[duckbill]

Peter C, the salmon run all summer and congregate at the fish barrier dam. The later in the summer, the more salmon. Put it on your calendar for next year to PM me here sometime in early to mid August and remind me I told you to, and I will give you the details then. Last year there were practically no salmon so I can't say how next year will be until I can check it out for you.

 

[HenrikBP]

Very nice video. Thanks for sharing.

Henrik