Ripple. — General Routine of a Trout Hatchery 109 



If one can arrange, as we are able to at Bayfield, to have the 

 water fall a foot or more into each pond, it will help to aerate the 

 water and also it creates a natural condition much appreciated by 

 the fish. These long and rather shallow ponds give the desired 

 current. They are also more easily covered with shades made of 

 two by fours, in the form of gable-roof frames over which building 

 paper or tar paper is stretched. We formerly did not use these, as 

 we have considerable natural shade from trees, but we were 

 greatly bothered with algae in the water. The shades do away 

 entirely with all this trouble, giving the fish all the available room 

 in the ponds and making it more agreeable when the time comes 

 for removing them for sorting or shipping. Formerly this green 

 "moss" would be seined in with the fish, getting into their gills, 

 and causing no small loss. 



Nothing can be more ideal for a bottom to these ponds than a 

 layer of clean gravel, which can be raked over and over when 

 cleaning, allowing the water to work through it and making for 

 more sanitary conditions. 



We have, now nearing completion, six fingerling or fry ponds, 

 each 8 feet wide, 50 feet long and 40 inches deep, and the water 

 will fall about eighteen inches into each pond. These are being 

 built beside our Birch Run Springs stream, among the densest of 

 natural shade. It is an ideal situation. We have tested the 

 water for several years past, because we trout men know only too 

 well that fine looking water, clear and beautiful, does not always 

 assure success. This Birch Run water is the softest in use at any 

 of our trout hatcheries. 



We aim to raise at Bayfield each year quite a number of 

 brook trout fingerlings, shipping many of them along in October, 

 but saving a certain number each year to replenish our stock fish 

 ponds and also those of our other trout hatcheries where the 

 conditions are less favorable for raising fingerlings. We have nine 

 hatcheries in our state, three of them being devoted to brook, 

 rainbow, and brown trout. The Bayfield plant is more successful 

 at this line than the others, in a number of ways, because the 

 water is much softer than that at the other hatcheries. 



Our Wild Rose Hatchery has the most beautiful water in 

 abundance, natural shade, plenty of fall, sandy, clean locality, 

 where the trout streams are the best in the state for fishing, 



