Off Topic North Bay fish culture station.

[Three Bouys]

Had the opportunity to visit the fish hatchery just outside of North Bay with our good friend.
He told us so much info it was hard to remember everything, but I’ll give it a go
The hatchery was built in the early 1960’s and is till the same production and no automation at all. From the time they receive the eggs to the time they release them took 16-18 months depending on the species
When the eggs arrive they still use the old method of counting. Depending on the species they will place eggs together in a line over 12” in a trough (piece of angle iron) to determine how many eggs in a liter. See picture.
Seen the process from incubation up to release and the water system that it needs. It takes 3,312,000 lt/24hrs to over every day.
There was no walleye in the tanks just Brown trout and splake. In the fry tanks there were approx 26,000 and 10 tanks before move over to the other building with cement tanks. He scooped up some brown trout in the net for us. They will be taken out to other lakes in mid May.

 

[jammer]

Very impressive operation... I had a chance to tour a "local" hatchery years ago... Are the Browns for the great lakes?

 

[rockin-steelhead]

That is very awesome. Many years ago I helped work the hatchery at the Brant Rod and Gun, first I helped the ministry electro-shock to get the browns in the river and then they were transported to the hatchery for the milking process and then put in recovery tanks to be let go back in the river. Then the eggs went in to the incubation trays once all the eggs were fertilized. I stayed involved and most of the process from removing the eggs that were not good and then moving them to tanks once they had hatched. Then I worked on clipping the fry that were going to be released that year on the Grand River. It was a very neat experience to say the least.

 

[stomp]

And I thought North Bay had no culture…

 

[Three Bouys]

@jammer he never said where they will be transported to other than they will do a 600 klm radius to release them either by helicopter or by trucks.

@rockin-steelhead he showed how they removed eggs that weren’t good by using an old syringe. That looked like a tidious, time consuming job to do all the trays.

@stomp if they don’t have any culture, they sure do have a $hit load of homeless. I did see a few of them and what a life they have.
I sat in the truck while Brandon quickly went into Walmart and there was a homeless going through those cigarette ash tray containers for butts and another walking picking up cigarette butts

Now I don’t know if this is just hear say, but some North Bayers said they were brought in by train from other southern communities.
Probably took them there to freeze dry them with those low negative temperatures they have there. So sad to see that, but that’s what they choose to do I guess.

 

[SilverTip49]

I thought splake were not being created after they stopped Georgian Bay stocking with them. Do you know where they are stocked now?

 

[stomp]

Now I don’t know if this is just hear say, but some North Bayers said they were brought in by train from other southern communities.
Probably took them there to freeze dry them with those low negative temperatures they have there. So sad to see that, but that’s what they choose to do I guess.

And here I thought they had all been bused to Londontown @Three Bouys … it seems to be getting worse by the day here

 

[rockin-steelhead]

it sure was a very time consuming tidious job but very rewarding when you saw the end results weeks later after the eggs turned to fry.