Fish and Game History at the Museum of Idaho

A trip to the Museum of Idaho in Idaho Falls will take you back to what some affectionately call "the Good Old Days." The Idaho Department of Fish and Game was asked to participate in the museum's current exhibit "Guns of the West and Fly Fishing the Rockies." And the featured item in the Fish and Game display will greet you as soon as you enter: A restored 1957 Chevrolet half-ton truck. This pickup was purchased new by Fish and Game and assigned to the Sandpoint and Hagerman hatcheries. It served to stock fish, as a feed truck, and had a fish pump mounted on the rear to load the large fish tankers. In 2002, the Dehryl A. Dennis Professional-Technical Education Center in Boise restored the exterior of the truck as a student project at no expense to Fish and Game. The restoration would not have been possible without the school's generosity. Mounted in the back of the truck is a restored 1940s era fish tank recovered from a ranch near the Mackay State Fish Hatchery. It is most likely the department's first slide-in pickup fish tank. A 1968 Salem Boat Works wooden drift boat and homemade trailer are towed behind the truck. Also featured in the Fish and Game display is historical aquaculture equipment, designed and built out of necessity at the fish hatcheries. The collection of equipment and historical photographs chronicle 100-year-old techniques used for spawning and egg collecting, egg care until hatching, transporting fish eggs, fish feeding and diet development, and the eventual planting of mature fish via horseback, backpack, truck, boat, airplane, and helicopter. But before locations could be chosen for stocking, habitat suitability and water quality testing was performed with some of the equipment represented in the display. For 107 years, the Department of Fish and Game has been preserving Idaho's wildlife heritage, starting with the appointment of Charles Arbuckle by former Idaho Gov. Frank Steunenberg as the first state game warden in 1899, to enforce the Civil War era game laws of 1864. The appointment proclamation can be viewed along side the original Fish and Game seal embosser dating back to at least 1907. A handwritten fish-stocking ledger itemizes individual fish plants from 1913 through 1935 when most stocking was performed by the public. The Museum of Idaho "Guns and Hooks" exhibit also includes a live fish tank with various Snake River trout, true-to-life mounted fish, as well as artistically-rendered carved fish, an aquatic invasive species display, and extensive historical collections of fly fishing rods, reels, and tackle, showing the origins and evolution of what we use today. More than 80 authentic and historically significant guns are showcased. The exhibit runs until January 27, 2007. For information, call the Museum of Idaho at 208-522-1400 or visit www.museumofidaho.org.