Feather River Fish Hatchery

Locat­ed below Lake Oroville, the Feath­er Riv­er Fish Hatch­ery offers an up-close look at the life­cy­cle of California’s migrat­ing fish.

While the facil­i­ty is a work­ing con­ser­va­tion site that keeps its rear­ing ponds stacked with fish all year long, the most pop­u­lar time to vis­it is when the sea­sons shift and thou­sands of fish make their way back up the river.

The entire facil­i­ty is set up for easy, self-guid­ed explo­ration, mak­ing it an easy stop dur­ing a day out in Oroville. For a deep­er dive into the facil­i­ties, make sure to sched­ule a guid­ed tour.

The Feath­er Riv­er Fish Hatch­ery is divid­ed into 2 sec­tions on either side of Table Moun­tain Boulevard:

East Side: Look Beneath the Sur­face at the Obser­va­tion Windows

The fish bar­ri­er dam fea­tures an under­wa­ter view­ing win­dow. From mid-Sep­tem­ber through mid-Novem­ber, you can stand face-to-face with mas­sive Chi­nook salmon as they fight their way upstream, while mid-Decem­ber through mid-Feb­ru­ary brings the sleek, hard-fight­ing steel­head trout into view.

Just steps away from the view­ing win­dows, the main obser­va­tion plat­form lets you take in the sights and sounds of the bar­ri­er dam, where you can even catch jump­ing fish as they make their way up the fish ladder.

West Side: Walk the Rear­ing Ponds and Spawn­ing Rooms

See the heart of the hatch­ery oper­a­tions, and walk right along­side the long rear­ing chan­nels packed with hun­dreds of thou­sands of young fish.

If you time your vis­it dur­ing the peak fall and win­ter months, you can even observe the active fish-tag­ging and spawn­ing operations.