Trask River Fish Hatchery Tillamook, Oregon

Trask River Fish Hatchery Tillamook, Oregon

Tucked up the Trask River a few miles east of Tillamook, the Trask Fish Hatchery (officially the Trask River Hatchery) is one of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife facilities that helps keep Oregon’s coastal salmon and steelhead fisheries viable—while also supporting education and fish management on the North Coast.

Quick facts (visitor-friendly)

• Best time to visit: fall and early winter (when adult salmon are returning)
  
  
• Visiting hours: 7:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. daily
  
  
• Fish raised: spring & fall Chinook, coho salmon, and winter steelhead
  
  
• What you’ll see: interpretive signage, and often excellent adult salmon viewing below the hatchery and in Gold Creek; group tours can be arranged in advance
  
  
• Heads-up on access: ODFW has posted that the access road has been closed to unauthorized vehicles due to slide activity (visitors/anglers must park outside the gate until further notice—call the hatchery with questions).
  
  

What a hatchery does 

A fish hatchery is basically a managed “nursery” that helps produce young fish for release. The goal depends on the specific program, but hatcheries generally aim to:

1. Support fisheries (so anglers and communities can still have consistent opportunity),
   
   
2. Rebuild or bolster runs where natural production alone may not meet management goals, and
   
   
3. Provide education and monitoring—hatcheries often serve as places where the public can actually see the fish life cycle up close.
   
   

ODFW operates 33 hatcheries statewide, producing about 40 million fish annually (numbers vary by year and program).

What happens at the Trask facility

According to ODFW’s visitor guide, the hatchery is used for:

• Adult collection (capturing returning adults for spawning),
  
  
• Incubation (raising eggs until they hatch), and
  
  
• Rearing (growing juveniles until release size)
  …for fall and spring Chinook, coho, and winter steelhead.
  
  

Think of the process like a relay race:

1) Adult returns → collection
Adult salmon and steelhead come back from the ocean to spawn. Hatchery programs collect some adults (broodstock) so eggs and milt can be taken in a controlled setting.

2) Spawning → fertilized eggs
Eggs are fertilized and moved into incubation trays or stack systems where water temperature and flow are carefully managed.

3) Incubation → hatch (alevins)
Eggs develop into alevins (tiny fish with yolk sacs). Conditions are monitored to reduce disease risk and improve survival.

4) Rearing → fry, parr, smolts
As they grow, juveniles are moved into larger rearing ponds or raceways, fed formulated diets, and monitored for growth/health.

5) Release → river, estuary, ocean
When juveniles reach target size and timing (often tied to seasonal flow and ocean conditions), they’re released to continue their natural life cycle.

A bit of history: from early fish traps to a modern hatchery

ODFW notes the hatchery was constructed in 1916, replacing an earlier hatchery located about three miles upstream. Over time, it’s been upgraded with things like an alarm system and additional rearing/storage structures, and it also includes satellite facilities such as Trask Pond (built 1970) and Tuffy Creek (built 1988).

To understand why hatcheries expanded in Oregon in the first place, it helps to look at the early 1900s: the Oregon History Project documents a 1914 fish-catching cage and rack built across the Trask River as part of a state hatchery project—an example of how fish were intercepted so eggs and milt could be collected for propagation.

How this connects to today’s fishing and conservation

One detail that surprises people: even though a hatchery sits on the Trask system, ODFW’s Northwest Zone reports note there are no hatchery steelhead releases on the Trask, so the river is mostly a catch-and-release fishery for wild winter steelhead (with the occasional hatchery stray).

That’s a good reminder that hatchery work can support regional management goals in different ways—some programs focus on providing harvest opportunity in certain basins, while other basins are managed more conservatively for wild fish.

Visiting info (where it is and how to get there)

ODFW lists the hatchery address as:
15020 Chance Road, Tillamook, OR 97141 | (503) 842-4090

ODFW also provides turn-by-turn directions from Tillamook via Hwy 6 and local roads to Chance Road.
(Because access conditions can change—especially with the current road notice—it’s smart to call ahead before you drive all the way in.)

Why hatchery tours are actually pretty cool

If you’ve never been to a hatchery, it’s one of the few places you can see the “invisible” parts of fish management:

• how eggs are incubated,
  
  
• what juvenile fish look like at different stages,
  
  
• why water quality and temperature matter so much, and
  
  
• how agencies balance fishing opportunity with wild fish protection.
  
  

And at the Trask site specifically, ODFW notes that adult salmon viewing can be excellent in fall, especially in the waters below the hatchery and in Gold Creek.