| Pudding River | |
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Pudding River near Aurora
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| Name origin: From Riviere au Boudin, given by French fur trappers in the early 19th-century to commemorate a blood pudding made from elk they shot near the river[1] | |
| Country | United States |
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| State | Oregon |
| County | Marion and Clackamas |
| Source | Waldo Hills |
| - location | east of Salem, Marion County, Oregon |
| - elevation | 950 ft (290 m) [2] |
| - coordinates | [3] |
| Mouth | Molalla River |
| - location | near Canby, Clackamas County, Oregon |
| - elevation | 62 ft (19 m) [3] |
| - coordinates | [3] |
| Length | 62 mi (100 km) [4][5] |
| Basin | 528 sq mi (1,368 km2) [6] |
| Discharge | for Aurora, 8.11 miles (13.05 km) from the mouth |
| - average | 1,237 cu ft/s (35 m3/s) [7] |
| - max | 43,700 cu ft/s (1,237.4 m3/s) |
| - min | 3.5 cu ft/s (0.1 m3/s) |
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Location of the mouth of the Pudding River in Oregon
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The Pudding River is a 62-mile (100 km) tributary of the Molalla River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Its drainage basin covers 528 square miles (1,368 km2). Among its tributaries is the Little Pudding River. Wild trout enter the upper main stem from tributary creeks that support them.
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About 24 million years ago at the end of the Oligocene, Oregon had started to look how it is today and the Willamette Bay finally became the Willamette Valley by drying up and being raised above sea level, after assuming a shape much like today's Puget Sound.[8]
Its complex of headwater creeks originates from the western edge of the Cascade Mountains along a significant ridgeline corridor that forms a critical linkage from the Mount Hood National Forest and Table Rock Wilderness to Silver Falls State Park and the rolling Waldo Hills east of Salem. After emerging from the unique forested upper-elevation Panther Rock wetlands, Butte Lake, and other transient snowpack-dependent Cascade Range foothills, the cool-running streams of the watershed converge near Woodburn into the meandering Pudding River, passing through a region of fertile agricultural lands in the lower Willamette Valley. Two forks of the Pudding join between the cities of Silverton and Mt. Angel, at , as the river continues its course northward where it receives Abiqua Creek from the right at about 2 miles (3.2 km) northwest of Silverton. North of Mt. Angel, Butte Creek, which comes down from the Cascade Range foothills past Scotts Mills, empties into the Pudding River at . The river continues northward past the town of Aurora. For most of its course, Butte Creek defines part of the boundary between Marion and Clackamas Counties.
The Pudding River flows into the Molalla River, at , just before the Molalla joins the Willamette River in a floodplain that is part of the Molalla River State Park. The Pudding River is part of the Molalla River Watershed.
The upper river offers catch-and-release fishing for wild trout, while the lower river has bass and panfish. Although the Pudding River is not stocked with hatchery fish, cutthroat trout and rainbow trout enter the upper main stem from Drift, Butte, Silver, and Abiqua creeks. Fishing is restricted to artificial flies and lures and is not allowed for winter-run steelhead that spawn in the tributaries. The extreme lower reaches of the river are navigable by boat when the stream flow is sufficient, sometimes as late as June.[9]
