Took a drive

[laker67]

Sandy and I decided to take a short road trip today. We drove to bssp. It was 64 degrees at the park and there was a crowd to prove it. Lots of folks out to enjoy this nice weather. We took one rod and one fanny pack in case we decided to fish. We ended up walking part of the creek bank and talking to some friends of ours. The creek is in good shape with the exception of, they forgot the fish. Pretty slim pickins for this time of year. Our friend said he talked to a guy from the hatchery earlier  in day. No brood stock left in the raceway and he said they were importing fertilized eggs from Utah. Utah? Maybe a new strain of mix or match rainbow trout. Maybe they will come up with one that grows beyond the "midget " strain.  Stopped on the way out to visit with other friends. We had good coffee and a good conversation on their outside deck. All of the well drilling was located at the parking area across from park store. They said one well is going to be 1600 feet. Don't know how they know that, but that is what they told Corky. A great day to be out and about even if no fishing. Great friends, great weather, and great coffee. 

[netboy]

Some interesting things I have learned about "brood stock" at our local hatcheries in Arkansas. I have talked with the biologists at Norfork Federal Hatchery, Jim Hinkle State Hatchery at Mammoth Springs and Greers Ferry Federal Hatchery. None of them have "brood stock". They do have a run in the hatchery that hold some big trout, but they are for tourists to feed and see and then they occasionally release a few in the rivers. The biologists I talked to said they get the eggs from Federal hatcheries that specialize in producing eggs. The biologist at Jim Hinkle told me they receive their shipment of fertilized eggs via FedEx in an Igloo cooler on overnight delivery and put them in the glass containers to hatch. Now that may not be the case in Missouri hatcheries but seems to be what happens down here. 

[jdmidwest]

13 minutes ago, netboy said:

Some interesting things I have learned about "brood stock" at the local hatcheries. I have talked with the biologists at Norfork Federal Hatchery, Jim Hinckle State Hatchery at Mammoth Springs and Greers Ferry Federal Hatchery on the Red River. None of them have "brood stock". They do have a run in the hatchery that hold some big trout, but they are for tourists to feed and see and then they occasionally release a few in the rivers. The biologists I talked to said they get the eggs from Federal hatcheries that specialize in producing eggs. The biologist at Jim Hinckle told me they receive their shipment of eggs via FedEx in an Igloo cooler on overnight delivery and put them in the glass containers to hatch. Now that may not be the case in Missouri hatcheries but seems to be what happens down here. 

Missouri used to do it onsite at Montauk.  I have watched it happen and have been in the room with the large glass containers watching them suck out the dead eggs from the mix.  There was some talk about having issues with production in 2020 because they could not strip eggs and milk and keep social distance.

Walked around the hatchery runs with the grandson Saturday at Montauk, there is a good mix of trout being raised.  Most stockers are down by the lodge in those runs, youngest fry in runs near hatchery building, and brood stock and next size up near the lake.

Not sure about the Arkansas system.  I know that Mammoth and Norfork merged their system a few years back in some ways.  There was a problem with a disease at Hinkle and the supply was coming from other locations.  Feds would only raise trout to a certain length, so State had to follow suit and only produce the smaller trout to release.   Hinkle used to release some of the brood stock in late summer into the river and you could pick up some big ones.  Missouri has done it also.

You would think there would be some mixing of the brood stock to keep genetics from getting too inbred.  Not sure how they handle that.

[fishinwrench]

7 hours ago, laker67 said:

Sandy and I decided to take a short road trip today. We drove to bssp. It was 64 degrees at the park and there was a crowd to prove it. Lots of folks out to enjoy this nice weather. We took one rod and one fanny pack in case we decided to fish. We ended up walking part of the creek bank and talking to some friends of ours. The creek is in good shape with the exception of, they forgot the fish. Pretty slim pickins for this time of year. Our friend said he talked to a guy from the hatchery earlier  in day. No brood stock left in the raceway and he said they were importing fertilized eggs from Utah. Utah? Maybe a new strain of mix or match rainbow trout. Maybe they will come up with one that grows beyond the "midget " strain.  Stopped on the way out to visit with other friends. We had good coffee and a good conversation on their outside deck. All of the well drilling was located at the parking area across from park store. They said one well is going to be 1600 feet. Don't know how they know that, but that is what they told Corky. A great day to be out and about even if no fishing. Great friends, great weather, and great coffee. 

Utah, hu?   Wow 😳.     I remember years ago they were having CutBows (rainbow/cutthroat hybrids) hauled in from..... somewhere.   They were kinda pretty but I don't recall ever seeing one over 14-15". 

Whaddya reckon it's costing for that equipment to sit there 24/7 ?  

I'm thinking it has to be in the neighborhood of 400.00/hr.   

That's 67,000.00 per week. Just shy of 300k per month.......And they say it's going to take until June or July to complete.    We're talking 2mil. and you haven't even paid any workers their hourly wage yet, nor paid for any materials.

If this doesn't result in the Niangua river becoming a destination trout fishery  after completion....... I'll always wonder why not.    

Maybe ol'Charlie knows what he's doing after all...... with his neverending construction... the likes of the Winchester mansion. 

At the very least, just MAYBE we could get a KFC, Subway, or a McDonald's somewhere near there.  I'm tired of eating Vienna sausages and SunChips for lunch.

[netboy]

Here is a write up from the Greers Ferry Hatchery website that explains the process.

 

How We Do It

Greers Ferry does not have any adult trout for breeding purposes. The hatchery receives fertilized eggs from other Federal hatcheries, called brood stock hatcheries. The majority of eggs we receive are provided by Erwin National Fish Hatchery, a national brood stock hatchery located in Tennessee.

Eggs are received and incubated in the juvenile fish rearing area of the hatchery building from August through March. At this stage the young fish are vulnerable, so biosecurity procedures are followed to protect the fish from disease or harmful biological agents.  Only staff are permitted in the juvenile fish rearing area.

As the eggs hatch and the yolk sacs are absorbed, the young trout swim up from the bottom of the troughs and are fed commercial fish food 5-6 times a day.  When they reach a size of approximately 3 inches (4-5 months old), the fingerling trout are transferred outside to the raceways.

In the raceway area, the fish are fed and cared for until they reach the 11-inch stocking size (approximately 20 months old). Each raceway of fish may be fed from one to three times a day depending on the size of the fish being fed.

Throughout the year fish are harvested from the raceways and distributed by truck for stocking in suitable tailwaters and in Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. Greers Ferry National Fish Hatchery produces more than 700,000 trout annually. Maybe one of those trout will be the subject for your next “big fish story.”

[laker67]

Utah is famous for cutthroats, would be nice to get some variety. I couldn't find much about the rainbow population, so I don't know if they are larger than the midgets we have or not. I am hearing two different stories on where our bssp fish will come from. The first I heard was SOH and now Utah. With no brood stock, you can guess how many lunkers they might stock into the creek this year. Of course we all know they will buy a few for opener and major holidays, and of course next November. So goes the fishing at bssp.

[jdmidwest]

6 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

Utah, hu?   Wow 😳.     I remember years ago they were having CutBows (rainbow/cutthroat hybrids) hauled in from..... somewhere.   They were kinda pretty but I don't recall ever seeing one over 14-15". 

Whaddya reckon it's costing for that equipment to sit there 24/7 ?  

I'm thinking it has to be in the neighborhood of 400.00/hr.   

That's 67,000.00 per week. Just shy of 300k per month.......And they say it's going to take until June or July to complete.    We're talking 2mil. and you haven't even paid any workers their hourly wage yet, nor paid for any materials.

If this doesn't result in the Niangua river becoming a destination trout fishery  after completion....... I'll always wonder why not.    

Maybe ol'Charlie knows what he's doing after all...... with his neverending construction... the likes of the Winchester mansion. 

At the very least, just MAYBE we could get a KFC, Subway, or a McDonald's somewhere near there.  I'm tired of eating Vienna sausages and SunChips for lunch.

Looks like the intake project is on a 4 million dollar budget.  You can access the expenditures here, its on the 2021 page down in the documents.  Looks like they are spending 10 grand on a fish cleaning station at Montauk soon also.

https://mdc.mo.gov/about-us/business-information

[Foghorn]

I have a copy of the draft from MDC when they were expounding their "Plan for Missouri Trout Fishing". It has a lot of background on the history of trout fishing with statistics and graphs highlighting (maybe Lowlighting) their programs . One objective was to produce catchable size rainbow that average no more than 12". This was part of what i think they labeled their 15 year(not sure) plan. Guess they actually made that part of the plan a success. I got it in the mail around 2003-04.

[fishinwrench]

4 hours ago, jdmidwest said:

Looks like they are spending 10 grand on a fish cleaning station at Montauk soon also

Wow, that's an expensive picnic table. 🙄

[Johnsfolly]

5 hours ago, jdmidwest said:

Looks like the intake project is on a 4 million dollar budget.  You can access the expenditures here, its on the 2021 page down in the documents.  Looks like they are spending 10 grand on a fish cleaning station at Montauk soon also.

 

They already have a cleaning station at Montauk. Why not one at BSSP? Maybe it's the meat jig lobbyists petitioning against a cleaning station😅