Project stirs memories of river brimming with life

It’s been more than half a century since the San Joaquin River ran free and salmon could find their way from the Pacific to spawn.

But the river remains mighty in the memories of some who lived in Fresno County before Friant Dam was built in the 1940s.

Once a decade or so, the San Joaquin River was a force of nature, rising above its banks and wreaking havoc on surrounding farm fields and nearby towns. But more often it was a playground, a place to spend an afternoon with a fishing line in the river.

“The river was a thing of beauty and it was spiritual,” said raisin-grape farmer Walt Shubin, 79, who was raised near Kerman.

Growing up without television, computers or video games, Shubin and his friends were drawn by the river. They would ride their bikes to Gravelly Ford, dig for earthworms, string hooks and cut willow limbs for poles.

Today the river slows to a trickle in the winter and is completely cut off west of Gravelly Ford. But in his youth, it created a verdant landscape along its banks that felt like a rainforest.

“You had to hack your way through just to get to the river,” Shubin said. “Now, it’s desert and no trees.”

And then there were the salmon, which ran thick as they traveled east to return to their spawning grounds.

One time at Gravelly Ford, “you could almost run across them to get to the other side,” he said.

Shubin said he doesn’t think the river will ever again see that many salmon — because the project will restore just a fraction of the river’s water. But he hopes to see at least an echo of the San Joaquin River of his youth.

“I want to be around long enough maybe to see salmon come back up the river,” he said.

Vern Hughes, 78, of Selma, remembers just one day spent on the river — but it was a remarkable day.

Hughes, his father and a friend caught seven salmon on the last day that spearfishing salmon was allowed in the river. Officials had determined that with the new dam reducing river flows, the salmon wouldn’t be able to spawn and so had declared them fair game.

Their fishing hole was on a levee near Mendota, about a 40-minute trip from his home in Parlier.

They then waded into water that was about knee-deep. Salmon swam at them in batches of a half-dozen or more, trailed by small wakes. “We would just stand there and stab the salmon,” he said. “There were farmers out there using pitchforks.”

He said the largest was about 23 pounds. All were very tasty.

“It was one of those days you don’t forget as a young kid,” he said.

Bud Rank, now 87 and living near Friant, said salmon helped feed his family — and many other families — during the 1930s and 1940s. The spring salmon runs near his family’s ranch, eight miles west of the dam, were impressive.

“There was a major area where they spawned where the river dropped suddenly,” he said. “They would make a tremendous splash and noise. It was great to see.” Native American families from Friant picked crops on his family’s ranch, and they would fish for salmon and dry it for jerky.

Darrell Imperatrice, 82, of Fresno, said his father, Tony, would hunt and fish not far from what is now Woodward Park.

“The biggest salmon in the world ran up this river,” he said.

Imperatrice said he still has the hooks, which he describes as “harpoons,” that his father used, along with traps for beaver and fox. Deer, wild turkey and pheasant also were common.

In his later years, “my dad would talk about floating down the river and spearing salmon … and they laughed at him,” Imperatrice said. “People have forgotten that this was a true wilderness.”