The salmon fishery belonging to the Upper and Lower Hoen

This has been practiced as a commercial fishery for many centuries. A leather letter from around the 14th century tells that the farms fished "um eiander og ankelaust" in Henåa, which was the lower part of the Hoens River (Heigne River) and the area at the outlet of the Storelva River. Lake Drafn at Eiker was then reduced to an extension of the river.

In 1530 the farms had a common owner, Haldo Reidulfson, who appears to be the ancestor of the Winther family. His sons probably made the current division of land and fishing when they took over the farms.

Lower Hoen was fished from Hellefossen to Storsteinen, about 400 meters below, and Upper Hoen from there to below Henåa, i.e. to the part towards Haug vicarage grounds.

As Drafn decreased, Hellefossen became higher and the fishing improved, while Øvre Hoen's grounds became poorer and in the 18th century were leased to Winther at Nedre Hoen. But an old timber axe from Øvre Hoen has a stylized salmon in the mark. Nedre Hoen had improved its flake fishing in the waterfall, depicted in JC Dahl's painting of Hellefossen from 1938. In the tax register in 1875, the fishing belonging to Nedre Hoen was valued at the same amount as the farm with 600 da. of inland and 500 da. of forest.

Due to the construction of a dam in the waterfall, the salmon fishing was lost, and throughout the 20th century, net and wading fishing on the ground also decreased. But in 1910, 10 tons of salmon were sent from Hokksund railway station to the company Inger Sørensen in Kristiania, a game and fish wholesaler; it was then from both the Ullern and Hoens fisheries and other local fishermen.

Kristoffer Kulland was the receiver and dispatcher and made sure to pack the night's catch in crushed ice in large boxes and send it by the morning train to Kristiania. This allowed the Hellefoss/Drammenselv salmon to be sold completely fresh, and this was due to the premium price over the Vestland salmon, also due to its size.

Fresh salmon was a luxury food, even on salmon farms, and it was probably not the one the servants conditioned themselves to not get more than 3 times a week! The story repeats itself in many salmon districts, but as Einar Mathiesen explains in the book "Salmon Fishing in Dramselva", it was the lean, salted autumn salmon, which became quite tough over the winter that they did not want to have too often. This was the time of subsistence farming, and all the farm's resources had to be utilized, including the autumn salmon.

When net fishing was banned in 1978, the yield was minimal. Therefore, it became easy to hand over the landowners' rights to the fishing to the Østsiden Jeger- og Fiskerforening for sport fishing and the sale of fishing licenses. This also put an end to "free fishing" and poaching. The Hellefossen Grunneierlag stretch was divided into zones and Øvre Hoen's zone became an attractive fly fishing zone. The landowners' yield was multiplied and thanks to the cooperation with the Østsiden Jeger- og Fiskerforening, the Drammen salmon was saved from extinction due to the salmon parasite.