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Pope County Tribune - Starbuck Times
Written by Contributed Article   
Wednesday, 08 June 2011 06:04

Local hatchery provides walleye fry, fingerlings to lakes in Grant, Douglas, Stevens, Pope counties

By Ann Grandy


The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Fish Hatchery in Glenwood has been hatching fish eggs for over 100 years. This year 90 million walleye eggs were harvested in Grand Rapids from wild walleye and brought to Glenwood. About half of the eggs hatched into "fry," tiny baby walleye about the size of a mosquito. Half of the fry were added directly to local lakes. The other half were transferred to walleye ponds where they will be raised to "fingerling" size - 4 to 6 inches long. This fall, the fingerling sized walleye will be trapped from the rearing ponds and released into local lakes.

The Glenwood Fish Hatchery supplies fry and fingerlings to Grant, Douglas, Stevens and Pope counties. This year 360,000 fry were stocked in Lake Ann, almost two million went to Lake Reno, and Lake Minnewaska got 6.4 million fry. More fish are stocked in the Glenwood area than are stocked in all of South Dakota and Iowa combined.

This year, the hatchery increased its capacity to 1,060 quarts. There are 125,000 eggs to a quart, so the hatchery can handle over 120 million eggs at a time. Hatchery Manager Ryan Kessler notes, "When the walleye eggs arrived at the hatchery, they were treated with iodine and passed through an ultraviolet light to kill any viruses or bacteria." Then they were placed in jars where fresh spring water, heated to just the right temperature, could circulate through to create the right conditions for the eggs and fry. This year the hatch times were extended due to low lake temperatures. The eggs had to be kept cool to match local lake temperatures so that the eggs in the jars hatched at the same time as the eggs in the wild. The eggs needed to be tended 24 hours a day to make sure they were at the right temperature.

Originally the hatchery was designed to use the icy cold spring fed ponds to hatch trout and salmon, but walleye turned out to be a better fit. However, there are still trout in the ponds in front of the hatchery. If you bring in a little popcorn or bread, you can feed the trout from the little wooden bridge across the pond. Although the hatching season has finished, you can visit the Minnesota DNR's YouTube page for videos of the entire process: http://www.youtube.com/user/MinnesotaDNR.