OREGON CITY, Ore. -- The job requires scaling a waterfall and grabbing wriggling, blood-sucking lamprey off slick, moss-covered basalt rocks.

But even that prospect, accompanied by drizzling rain and thunder, didn't deter the small group of young men.

They had traveled from Mission, Ore., spent the night in a motel and weren't going back without the prized snakelike fish.

Aaron Jackson, 30, the group leader, jumped into the 19-foot aluminum Duckworth skiff at the Clackamette Park launch. He started the 140-horsepower Suzuki outboard and steered into the lower Willamette River's current toward Willamette Falls.

"Be prepared. The falls smell like sewage," Jackson warned.

The group of young Native Americans are paid by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation to collect lamprey for tribal elders. Theirs was a last-ditch effort to collect enough of their traditional food for seasonal tribal ceremonies and subsistence.

Earlier in the year, Oregon regulators had banned the men from collecting more than 100 lamprey per person. State officials are trying to protect the species, which might be in trouble after being commercially harvested until 2002.

Tribal members who harvest lamprey successfully argued that they collect the fish for the entire reservation and should receive an exemption from the new rules, because the job is too dangerous for their elders or children. An agreement had been reached days before Jackson and his crew headed for the falls.

The area appears the last place in the Pacific Northwest the tribes can collect the treasured food. Columbia River dams, loss of habitat and pollution have devastated once plentiful runs, tribal members say.

"The tribe used to fish the Umatilla and John Day rivers," Jackson said. "Now this is what's left."

Each summer, the lamprey return from the Pacific Ocean, detach their suction cup mouths from the host fish they've been riding and make their way up the Columbia River and its tributaries to spend the winter. They spawn in spring.

The only effective places to catch lamprey are waterfalls. Jackson said they can't be lured by bait or caught in any quantity with nets.

Jackson's crew consisted of three experienced lamprey harvesters and one first-timer. The eldest was 27, the youngest 18.

All were dressed in Hawaiian-style board shorts and felt-bottomed boots to keep from slipping.

"Anybody got the time?" Jackson yelled over the buzz of the outboard and roar of the nearby falls. "We can't fish before 7."

Tribal people used to prefer fishing the falls at night, when lamprey migrate. During the day, the fish suck onto rocks and rest. But fishing regulations now mandate daytime harvesting.

The young lamprey hunters hunkered down in the front of the boat, trying to keep warm and out of the wind in the soggy morning.

The boat headed up a canyon. On one side, the falls roared, while the other side was bordered by steep retaining walls and industrial buildings.

Uprooted old trees spread out like a box of spilled toothpicks at random angles stuck on the falls. Salmon jumped, also trying to make their way up the falls.

It was 7:03 a.m.

Jackson carefully negotiated the skiff through the white-water froth at the bottom of the falls and found a calmer eddy.

One of the crew jumped out and lashed the boat to a rock outcropping with a long rope. Then all stripped off their shirts, donned cotton gloves and jumped ashore.

Jackson, who has come to the falls for 11 years, was the last to scramble up the rocks, driftwood and surging water.

"I just kind of hang back and put the eels in the bag," he said with a chuckle. "I just supervise and make sure everyone stays alive."

The men didn't wear life vests. All are strong swimmers, but Jackson said drowning near the falls would be easy if someone slipped on the rocks and was knocked out.

Sprained muscles, hurt arms and scraped legs are common.

Near the top of the falls, Derek Muniz, 18, of Pilot Rock, stood on the edge of a steep drop-off thigh deep in rushing water. He had found an underwater crevice where dozens of lamprey clung.

He paused for a breath after pulling out a fish with each plunge into the depths. His cotton gloves helped him grasp the slick fish, and he dumped them into a burlap bag before they were able to bend back and attach to his body. This was his first lamprey harvest.

"Keep going!" Jackson urged. "Keep going! Don't hold back."

Jackson held onto the squirming bag, full of irked lamprey. The fish slithered in a writhing ball, trying to escape.

Muniz caught about 50 lamprey in about five minutes.

But they had come for 500. And catching the rest proved more difficult.

Unlike salmon, lamprey don't return to their natal stream. Scientists believe returning lamprey follow the scent of juvenile lamprey to the tributaries where their young might also survive. After about four to six years in a fresh water stream, the juvenile lamprey travel downstream to the ocean where they find a host to latch onto and suck blood.

But there is still much to learn about lamprey, which haven't been studied as much as salmon or other aquatic species.

"You could fit most of the lamprey literature in one file cabinet," said Jackson, who works full time with the fish for the tribes. "We're just cracking the book on these things."

The lamprey hunters on the falls returned to their boat after about an hour to move to a different location only to discover their craft stranded on the rocks by receding water.

The adjacent paper mills and Portland General Electric, which has operated at the falls since 1889, had started up and were diverting more water, Jackson said.

It took all hands to shove and scrape the boat back into open water.

About that time, a larger boat loaded with a dozens of Warm Spring Native Americans showed up. Old men, girls, women and boys scrambled out onto the rocks nearby. Most just watched as a few actually fished.

"This is the most people I've seen here," Jackson said.

Lamprey, which cooks down into a dark, reddish-brown chewy meat, is a favorite of many Columbia River tribal people.

"I like them off the fire or off the barbecue," Jackson said. "Some people put teriyaki or garlic salt on them. I just like them how they are."

Jackson said his grandmother used to can the fish, and he didn't realize what he was eating on toast until he was older.

Traditionally, the lamprey were sliced open, spread apart with cedar sticks and dried in the arid, hot summer winds. The rich meat was eaten much like a strong-flavored jerky.

"It's a chewy meat. A little bit goes a long way," Jackson said. "It's an acquired taste, but it's a cultural taste, too."

But many of Jackson's generation haven't ever eaten the fish, he said.

"It's kind of lost culture," he said.

After the four tried to find lamprey at the top of the falls, the crew decided to try yet another spot.

Right in the white water.

Jackson climbed back out of the boat and up onto some rocks where he could watch the four younger men fishing one of the falls' plunge pools.

They struggled against the frothing water, swimming as hard as they could. Then, when they were nearly under the waterfall, they would dive down and pull lamprey off rocks as deep as 7 feet below.

Sometimes the force of the thundering water was too much and pushed the men back to a rock about 10 feet away in calmer water. There, they would rest briefly before starting the fight against the current again.

They caught so many lamprey, the handle broke off the net they were using to hold the fish.

Jeremy "Red Star" Wolf, 27, of Pendleton, sustained a gash on the bridge of his nose.

"I was going down too deep and got greedy," he said afterward. He fingered the still-bright-red slice with a finger.

Wolf explained that each time he caught a lamprey in the turbid water, the other fish would retreat deeper under the falls.

"As you start grabbing them, they start going down away from you," he said.

But Wolf said he loved the danger and the job.

"It's a lot better than regular fishing," he said. "I like getting in the water with them."

Brandon Treloar, 23, of Pendleton, was struck in the leg by a migrating salmon struggling up the falls.

"Just about knocked me over," he said.

By 10 a.m., they picked their way through the slick rocks back to the boat, bound for Mission to hand out the fish to tribal members.

Back at the Clackamette Park dock, tribal members who had traveled from Pendleton greeted them. The lamprey hunters caught about 271 -- not all they wanted, but the fishermen had run out of time.

The fish were loaded into a large cooler and layered with ice in the back of the pickup.

About 150 lamprey caught the day before were a little more lucky. They swam around in a tank of cooled, oxygenated water. In a few weeks, they would be shipped alive to a Michigan State University scientist who wants to study what stresses the fish in their environment.

Others caught on different trips would be transported to the tribes' lamprey holding facility until spring and then released into tributaries near the reservation in the hopes they will spawn and help rebuild lamprey populations. One day, tribal members hope not have to travel so far to harvest the fish.

Jackson said perhaps the most rewarding part of the harvest was watching the elders and families collect their fish. Some people freeze, dry or preserve their lamprey for use throughout the year, he said.

But "some people can't stand it or wait," he said. "They will just eat them that day."