MOUNTAIN REST, S.C.
For trout fishermen, this could be nirvana.
Trout by the thousands -- rainbow, brook and brown -- swim around concrete "raceways" filled with water, some only a few inches long, others 15 inches and longer.
But these fish aren't for catching, at least here, anyway.
They will be, when they reach the target sizes of 9 inches or 12 inches, said Scott Poore, manager of the Walhalla State Fish Hatchery, found off S.C. 107 about as far north as you can go in Oconee County before hitting North Carolina.
Poore and his crew produce fish for stocking public waterways capable of sustaining trout in South Carolina's Oconee, Pickens and Greenville counties, and in the tailwaters of Hartwell Lake and Lake Murray. Each year, about 500,000 fish are taken from the hatchery and delivered to rivers, streams and creeks around the Upstate, including the Chattooga, Saluda, Big Eastatoee and Chuga rivers and their tributaries.
"If there's a piece of property that's open to the public that can support trout, odds are we stock it," Moore said. "We try to produce these fish and release them in streams to target a wide array (of uses) for the general public, from food consumption to sport fishing."
Five days a week, from mid-February to late October, trucks with 200 to 1,200 fish head from the hatchery to area waterways. The load size depends on the size of the fish the truck carries.
The hatchery complex dates back to the 1930s, when it was built by the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps. It was operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service until 1996, when federal budget cuts threatened to close the hatchery. It was then that the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources took over its operation.
Today, the four full-time and two part-time employees keep the hatchery running year-round, and Poore and another employee live on site in case of problems. The complex operates with water drawn from local streams, mostly from the east fork of the Chattooga River, using gravity rather than pumps, to run fresh, oxygenated water through the raceways before it is returned to the streams.
That system doesn't rely on electricity and isn't vulnerable when there's a power outage, Poore said. But using a freshwater source does introduce fish to viruses and pathogens, and the staff needs to be vigilant to keep the fish healthy.
"Water quality is our No. 1 enemy," he said.
Droughts can be a problem, too. During the recent drought, water flow through the complex dropped from a normal 3,200 gallons a minute to as low as 1,300 gallons a minute, stressing both fish and hatchery employees.
Poore is a biologist, which is required for each of the state's six hatcheries. He earned his master's degree from Clemson University and has been working and living at the hatchery site since November 2007.
Beyond managing the hatchery, his goal is to educate the public about its history dating to President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal; to educate about the science of and life cycles of fish, especially trout; and to conduct career days at schools.
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