Division of Wildlife fish hatcheries help keep Ohio sport fishing growing: Photos

CASTALIA, Ohio– Fisherman have a long standing reputation for stretching the truth when it comes to their trophy catch. But it’s no stretch to say sport fishing in Ohio is big business. Really big.

According to the American Sport Fishing Association’s 2018 estimates, the economic impact of sport fishing in Ohio was about $2 billion and growing. Sport fishing in the state also contributed to about 16,800 jobs.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife stocks more than 40 million fish each year throughout the state and Lake Erie with the goal of enhancing sport fishing in Ohio. Sport fish species raised for stocking in public waters include: coldwater fish (rainbow trout, brown trout), coolwater fish (saugeye, walleye, yellow perch and muskellunge) and warmwater fish (hybrid striped bass, channel catfish, bluegill and largemouth bass).

They operate six hatcheries to manage this task.

One of those hatcheries, nestled at the end of a long winding drive in Castalia, produces the majority of the stocked trout in the Ohio waterways.

The hatchery raises the fish from eggs, transferring them to progressively larger tanks until they are big enough to move to the 900-foot-long raceway that contains 40,000 cubic feet of water. There, they finish growing until they are ready to be collected and released throughout the state. The water flowing into the raceway at about 2,000 gallons per minute comes from a natural spring on the property called the “Blue Hole.”

Andy Jarrett, the Castalia fish hatchery superintendent, said their program raises about 450,000 steelhead for Lake Erie annually.

“The steelhead is a huge fishery on Lake Erie,” Jarrett said.

“The Lake Erie fishery is known worldwide as being one of the best steelhead fisheries.”

Steelhead don’t naturally reproduce in Lake Erie tributaries due to water temperatures and generally low oxygen levels. So Jarrett’s job is to make sure their species thrives through stocking.

Castalia’s hatchery also raises about 80,00 rainbow trout every year, which go into 65-70 different lakes and reservoirs around the state.

Stocking occurs from March through May most years when ideal water temperatures for stocking the young fish are in the low 50s.