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PHOTO: The Summerville Trout Hatchery received 220,000 rainbow trout eggs from Ennis, Montana. The first of four egg shipments to be used to replace the lost fish and stock North Georgia trout streams.
Taniesa L. Sullivan | The Weekly Ledger News
SUMMERVILLE, GA - Despite losing more than 17,000 trout during the Labor Day Weekend flood at the Summerville Trout Hatchery in Chattooga County, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Resource Division (WRD) is making good on its promise that it will not let the near disaster affect trout stockings in 2023.
The hatchery just received 220,000 rainbow trout eggs from Ennis, Montana. It is the first of four egg shipments that will be used to replace the lost fish and to stock North Georgia trout streams.
The shipment of 220,000 trout eggs is now in hatching jars at the Summerville hatchery. In those jars, the eggs are gently rolled in a water flow. That keeps the eggs clean and well-oxygenated as they incubate.
PHOTO: Austin Lesesne with a beautiful Rainbow Trout. Lesesne is a fly-fishing and trout guide with Strip and Set Guide Service based in the Trout Capital of Georgia, beautiful Blue Ridge in Fannin County, North Georgia.
Blue Ridge offers more trout fishing opportunities than any other mountain town in North Georgia. There are some notable private water trophy trout streams in the area, the spotlight shines brightest on the prolific wild trout streams, the tremendously popular Toccoa River Tailwater, and the heavily stocked feeder streams of the Upper Toccoa River upstream of Lake Blue Ridge. Each of these fisheries offers different challenges to anglers, and they have always possess a healthy population of trout, however, without these trout eggs from Montana, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Resource Division may not of been able to make that happen in the North Georgia areas like Blue Ridge for the first time in many years.
PHOTO: The Summerfield Hatchery in Chattooga County flooded during the Labor Day weekend.
The Summerville Trout Hatchery on Fish Hatchery Road was hit with 14 inches of rain in less than eight hours on Labor Day weekend. That caused its trout raceways and production ponds to overflow and that turned the facility into one big lake. It was only quick action by hatchery personnel that saved the entire facility from an even worse loss. Personnel was netting fish in puddles and asphalt roadways.
Of the 72,000 trout being raised at the facility, approximately 55,000 survived. The majority of the fish that did escape were small fish that were to be stocked in 2023.
(Georgia Outdoor News)
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