660 Acres with 4.8 Miles of River Frontage

Middle Fork of the John Day River, East Central Oregon

Asking $795,000 cash, will sell all or part

There is a 199 acre piece that can have three building sites developed.
There is a 120 acre piece that can have two building sites developed.
There is a 341 acre piece zoned primary forest that will allow one building site.

This is an outdoor recreationalist's heaven. Here is what all you can do for fun on this property: The State of Oregon has a very generous land owner preference system for issuing guaranteed hunting tags for elk, deer, bighorn, and various other species. Each year things can change a little but because this is divided into three separate tax lots it actually increases the number of hunting tags available.
Please see this web-site for more information: http://www.dfw.state.or.us/resources/hunting/big_game/controlled_hunts/landowner.asp

The fishing on this stretch of the river is incredible. The trout population on this river is among the best in Oregon and there is also a very healthy population of salmon and steelhead that spawn on this property. Each year permission is granted for a salmon count to be conducted right on this property so it is possible to get exact population counts for migrating fish. Please contact the Oregon Fish and Wildlife for details.

During the summer last year my family and I spent a day at the river (we live in Arizona so we don't get there very often) and we didn't have our fishing poles with us so we decided to make the best of things. The grasshopper population was very healthy and they were easy to catch so we got a feeding frenzy kicked off by throwing them into the water. We got to where the grasshoppers wouldn't even make it to the water before a fish jumped up and grabbed them right out of the air. The water was so clear and beautiful. Trout that feed on grasshoppers get very large and healthy. This ended up being one of the most fun fishing trips I've had with my children. There were no tangled up reels, nobody getting poked with a hook and no worries about damaging a fish such that it couldn't be released without dying.

Another great benefit this property provides is there is a very respectable amount of placer gold in the alluvial gravels of this river system. There is a lot of very rich gold mines in the headwaters of this river and so all of the gravels of this river have gold concentrated in it. Because of this, there is a ghost town called Galena just 9 miles upstream where the canyon widened out and they could run a large dredge. You can see the evidence of the tailings the dredge produced. They only ran these dredges in river systems that are very rich in placer gold. I ran some extensive tests of over 6 yards of material in three separate locations on this property to prove it up and as was expected there was a few nice pickers, some flakes and a lot of dust. There is enough gold in the gravels of this river that if the United States were to go into another depression someone could make a living here working hard and in fact they could make a living allowing 10 others to work hard and keep a small percentage. As long as you owned this property, you would never be broke. Gold is legal as money according to the Constitution of the United States.

There are some very tall basalt cliffs that should be good for rock climbing on this property. Basalt is a very good and safe type of rock for climbing that offers a good challenge.

What I think someone should do with this property is build a lodge. With all there is to do around here all through the seasons it should be possible to keep this facility full to capacity. Fishing in the spring and early summer and hunting in the fall and recreational gold mining the whole summer through fall. It is only a 4.5 hour drive from Portland and a 3 hour drive from the airport in Boise Idaho, a fast growing and relatively wealthy city.

Properties of this type in Idaho that are two or three hours from Boise are tens of thousands of dollars per acre. What I am offering is a bargain when comparisons are taken into consideration, which comparisons do not have salmon and steelhead runs due to dams on the Snake River and Idaho doesn't have as generous hunting privilages as Oregon does. Nor are the rivers in Idaho as pristine and untouched as this river is in Oregon. In fact, this river is being gobbled up by the local Indian tribes and they are putting a tremendous amount of money into vitalizing and improving the habitat for salmon spawning. It is likely the time will come when the Indians will want to purchase this property as well. This river upstream from the bridge on HWY395 is of keen interest to them. Once the Indian tribes purchase land it is likely that it will never be up for sale again. This type of opportunity to own almost 5 miles of prime salmon/steelhead riverfront is rare and may never occur again this affordably.

Information about installation of a bridge for more ideal and year-round access.

Technical information about the property: Middle Fork Prelim Report
There are some nice photos in here: Realtor's Packet
State of Oregon Forest Land Owner's Guide: Forest Landowners Guide

Maps of the property and surrounding area: Maps

Click here to see Google Earth Images.

These images below were taken by the contractor I hired to install a bridge on the property.