This story comes from WVIA News.
A truckload of walleye arrived at the Pleasant Mount State Fish Hatchery just before noon on a chilly April Friday.
Gold and olive fish were plucked from Lake Wallenpaupack on a snowy morning to help produce another generation of freshwater fish for anglers across Pennsylvania to catch, starting this Saturday.
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“You couldn’t catch walleye in most of Pennsylvania without this facility,” said Tim Schaeffer, executive director of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.
Schaeffer spoke to a group of Wayne County representatives before touring the facility on April 5. The hatchery is on the west branch of the Lackawaxen River. It was opened in 1903 and since then, more than 20 different types of fish have been raised there.
Walleye are in the perch family. They are native to Canada and the upper Midwest.
After being placed in the bath to soothe her, the eggs were offered from the female walleye. Photo: Aimee Dilger/WVIA News
The hatchery spawns walleye 20 times during the spring. They are netted from trucks and into hatchery tanks to begin a trippy overnight vacation.
Walt Yetter, hatchery manager, led the tour. They say men and women look alike. So they are squeezed to find out their gender.
Females release eggs and males, sperm or milt. Women are placed in an anesthetic solution to relax their nerves. Then their tens of thousands of eggs are massaged from their swollen white bellies. Males are kept in circular tanks in a separate room.
The fish eggs are kept in constant motion so they don’t stick together. As the eggs become more translucent, the eyes of the fish are visible. Photo: Aimee Dilger/WVIA News
Water and milk are added to a bowl of eggs. It is mixed with a turkey feather and left to fertilize. The eggs are delicate and the fur is not damaged. The little yellow eggs go into bubbling egg jars to wait for the baby fish to hatch.
The adult fish returned to Lake Wallenpaupack the next day. Yetter said they must have been to the hatchery several times. Their offspring are raised in a 30-acre hatchery pond, eventually, they are stocked in cold waters across the commonwealth and east coast for anglers to try and catch.
Walleye eggs are mixed with sperm and mixed with a turkey feather. Photo: Aimee Dilger/WVIA News
A variety of factors go into where the fish will be stocked including water temperature and the top predator in the water. Fish and Boat the local stock of walleyes in Lake Wallenpaupack and Duck Harbor Pond in Wayne County and Fords Pond in Lackawanna.
Yetter says only 1% of their eggs survive in the wild, even under the best conditions.
“It inflates those numbers significantly,” he said.
