Huntsdale State Fish Hatchery produces more than 500,000 trout
Andrew Wagner, Huntsdale State Fish Hatchery manager, talks about how trout are produced and raised for public waterways.
Brian Whipkey, Erie Times-News
CARLISLE ― While anglers might be planning a trip for steelhead in Erie County or going to a cold trout stream on a nice autumn day, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission is busy creating trout for anglers to catch in 2024.
Yes, the trout that are stocked in lakes and rivers are fish that the agency has been growing for more than a year.
The commission runs 13 hatcheries including eight that focus on trout. It’s a massive effort when you think about how many trout are raised across the commonwealth. Toward the end of February, the agency started stocking 3.2 million trout for public fishing. That doesn’t include the 1 million trout it provides to volunteer co-op nurseries to raise and stock in open streams.
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It’s a process that goes on every summer. I spent a morning at the Huntsdale State Fish Hatchery in Cumberland County while the staff were spawning rainbow and golden rainbow trout. “When July and August comes around our rainbow trout start producing eggs,” Andrew Wagner, hatchery manager, said.
The Huntsdale facility provides about 538,000 adult fish and about 250,000 fingerlings to the co-operative nurseries each year based on requests from the agency’s biologists.
They also are able to provide eggs and fingerlings to other hatcheries in the state.
Biologists survey the lakes and streams to determine which type and the number of fish they should receive. “Not every stream is going to get brooks, browns and rainbows. Some streams are best suited for only rainbows and some streams are best suited for only brook trout. It’s all based on what the biologists have seen in the field,” Wagner said.
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Rainbows and browns survive better in waters with fluctuating temperatures. Brook trout are found in colder mountain streams.
The hatchery uses 3-year-old female fish and 2-year-old male trout to spawn the next generation.
The fish are placed in water with a temporary numbing agent during the procedure to milk out the eggs and sperm. “It basically puts the fish to sleep,” Wagner said. Within a few minutes, the fish are swimming again, unharmed.
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A female trout has about 1,000 eggs per pound of fish. Wagner said most fish weigh about 3 pounds and that gives them about 3,000 eggs. About two-thirds of the eggs successfully become trout. “In the wild, it would be a single-digit success rate,” he said.
When the mature fish ― which can be around 20 inches long ― are finished spawning, they are used for stocking in public waterways.
Joe Tusing, hatchery foreman, explained the hatch times for trout eggs depend on the water temperatures; the lower the temperature, the longer the hatch time.
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When the eggs are fertilized at Huntsdale, it takes two weeks before you can see a fish eye developing in the egg. At four weeks, a fish is formed and it feeds off its egg sacs. At six weeks, it becomes an independent feeding trout.
Tusing credits the natural multiple springs that are flowing into the hatchery for creating optimal conditions to grow trout. The springs provide water that usually stays between 56 degrees and 60 degrees throughout the year.
A year-round effort
“Some people know what goes on here but a lot of people don’t. From spawning, to becoming a fertilized egg, to a fry or finglerling,” Wagner said there’s a lot of effort to keep the fish healthy and clean.
When the fish are moved to the raceways, they are fed four or five times a day based on their body weight. “We continually treat them until they get about 18 months old and we can begin stocking them,” Wagner said.
He estimates it costs around $2 to raise a trout to the 10-inch to 12-inch length that iis normally stocked because of the manpower needed to care for the fish, hatchery and equipment.
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“We have 13 employees in total. We have seven fish culturists who are here year-round and two fish culturists who are here seasonally for eight or nine months,” Wagner said. “Those are the guys and gals who do all the work around the hatchery. They take care of the fish, they take care of the grounds, they build the equipment themselves and they take care of everything you see that goes into raising the fish that you are going to see stocked out in the streams.”
It’s a similar to other types of farming where you can’t close the shop for holidays or special events.
“Three hundred sixty five days a year there’s somebody here. There’s at least one person here all the time to make sure the water is flowing, the fish are getting fed and are growing and that they are healthy so the anglers end up getting a good product,” Wagner said.
Pennsylvania’s hatcheries
The 13 hatcheries across the state are usually open to the public, but are closed at certain times of the year for construction and other projects. Visitors should call before making a visit.
For example, at Huntsdale, the staff is watching out for invasive New Zealand mud snails.
The hatchery is allowing guided tours where the staff members can check visitors’ boots for the small critters. Wagner explained that a visitor might have just come from another fishery where the snail could have clung to their gear. “We don’t want that to come in to the hatchery,” he said.
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In addition to Huntsdale, you can find trout being raised at seven other state fish hatcheries: Bellefonte; Pleasant Gap, also in Bellefonte; Benner Spring in State College; Oswayo in Coundersport; Reynoldsdale in New Paris; Tylersville in Loganton, and Corry.
The 13 hatcheries managed by the commission:
Bellefonte State Fish Hatchery for trout: 1115 Spring Creek Road, Bellefonte, PA 16823; 814-355-3371
Benner Spring State Fish Hatchery for trout: 1735 Shiloh Road, State College, PA 16801; 814-355-4837
Corry State Fish Hatchery for trout: 13365 Route 6, Corry, PA 16407; 814-664-2122
Fairview State Fish Hatchery for steelhead: 2000 Lohrer Road, Fairview, PA 16415; 814-474-1514
Huntsdale State Fish Hatchery for trout/striped bass: 195 Lebo Road, Carlisle, PA 17013; 717-486-3419
Linesville State Fish Hatchery for walleye/warmwater species: 13300 Hartstown Road, Linesville, PA 16424; 814-438-2222
Oswayo State Fish Hatchery for trout: 96 State Route 244 East, Coudersport, PA 16915; 814-698-2102
Pleasant Gap State Fish Hatchery for trout: 450 Robinson Lane, Bellefonte, PA 16823; 814-359-5121
Pleasant Mount State Fish Hatchery for warmwater species/lake trout: 229 Great Bend Turnpike, Pleasant Mount, PA 18453; 570-448-2101
Reynoldsdale State Fish Hatchery for trout: 162 Fish Hatchery Road, New Paris, PA 15554; 814-839-2211
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Tionesta State Fish Hatchery for walleye/steelhead: 172 Hatchery Lane, Tionesta, PA 16353; 814-755-3524
Tylersville State Fish Hatchery for trout: 43 Hatchery Lane, Loganton, PA 17747; 570-725-3965
Union City State Fish Hatchery for mussels: 9450 Route 6, Union City, PA 16438; 814-438-2222
Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at bwhipkey@gannett.com and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter emailon your website’s homepage under your login name. Follow him on social media @whipkeyoutdoors.
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