Early Lemery was interviewed by Andy Slater and Adrian Erickson in 1987 for a class project. This is what he stated about Kettle Falls.
"The Grand Coulee Dam flooded over fishing grounds, I don't remember when they completed that Dam, but that's when we had to quit fishing. No more salmon would come up there (to the Kettle Falls on the Columbia River, 25 miles north of Inchelium).
"In 1925, I used to help my dad fish, but where he used to fish they had dugout places. He used to catch salmon when the salmon were running at their peak. They (Indians) would start about the first of July and fish July, August and September. In September, they would start slacking up. We would catch 50 to 100 salmon a day. They (the fish) run from 18 to 80 or 90 pounds a piece. But the highest salmon ever speared, an old man speared it. He hit it in the back of the head and killed it. It weighed 110 pounds. We usually caught salmon that were 18-20 pounds. It was nothing to catch a 30 to 60 pounder.
"We used to snag them with a pole and then spear them. The spear had a fork on the end. We had baskets about 6 feet long and 3 feet wide. We would hang these where the falls came down on a big pole and one of those salmon would get down in the basket, then we'd hook them and pull them out of there. We used to set a line overnight for a sturgeon. We caught them all the way from 160 pounds. The biggest one we caught was 9 feet long and weighed 420 pounds.
"There was a big sand bar out there and we'd swim out and get the bait. We would get a pine tree about 6-8 inches at the bottom and we'd bury it in the sand and hook a line on the end and swim out and drop the line in the water. The next morning we'd swim out and check the line.
"Where the main falls come down, they would catch all the way from 200-300 salmon a day over there. They would hire 2 men in the morning and all would go out and take the salmon out of these baskets and would distribute them around to the Indian people who were there. Then at noon, they would give them each a 50 lb salmon for their wages. Of course, a 50 lb salmon at 10 cents a pound would go for $15 dollars for a half days work. That was lots of money in those days. Then from noon to evening, they'd put 2 other men out there.
"It was lots of fun. Just about at daybreak, we'd start spearing. We'd dig in the rocks and run two poles out there. Then put boards on the rocks and spear off this scaffold. Of course, the water would just boil white and when the tide would go down, it would clear up and we could see the salmon and would spear them.
"Some of our old people put a cable across there and built a trolley with a seat on each side and it had pulleys on it and we'd go across to the island; that's where we'd fish.
"When I was 10 years old I fell in the falls, of course you know how kids are. My dad told me not to cross that trolley alone. I got there and no one was around, they were all fishing. They couldn't hear me so I jumped in and started pulling myself on the rope. My legs were so short I was sitting on the seat on one side and had my toes on the other side and pretty soon my hands got tired and I fell down through the bottom. I had to swim out of there. I was lucky the tide was down and there were two falls below me.
"When the tide was in, there were great big whirlpools, and just when I got close to the Island, I got my fingers in some slanted rocks and climbed out. That's what I got for not minding."
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