14 FISH AND GAME COMMISSION 



REPORT OF THE BUREAU OF FISH CONSERVATION 



By A. C. Taft, Chief 



The Division of Fish and Game now operates 23 trout hatcheries 

 and rearing stations, and one bass hatchery and fish rescue station, for 

 the rearing and salvage of fish to be planted in the fresh waters of the 

 State. The annual production of the trout stations is in excess of 30 

 million fish per year. These same stations also rear about 7 million 

 salmon, most of which are handled at the two hatcheries in the Klamath 

 River area, Fall Creek (No. 20) and Mt. Shasta (No. 21). 



This existing hatchery system has developed over a period of some 

 60 years and as at present constituted it represents facilities resulting 

 from an extended experience in meeting requirements in this State. 

 The personnel on whom the success of the work depends in a large 

 degree also benefits from this long background of experience. Most of 

 the men have come into State service while young and have acquired 

 their technical training through actual experience. 



This hatchery system was developed to meet the needs for large 

 numbers of relatively small fish for distribution throughout the State 

 in the less accessible areas and particularly in the many barren streams 

 and lakes of our higher mountain areas. This type of work was very 

 necessary and very valuable and there is still need for this type of pro- 

 duction in order to maintain fishing in the bulk of the trout area of 

 the State. However, with the constantly increasing population of 

 California and other changing factors such as the development of roads 

 and increasing interest in outdoor recreation, it has become apparent 

 that certain changes in our plan of operations are now necessary. For 

 many years there has been extended discussion amongst sportsmen's 

 clubs and even within the ranks of fish culturists with regard to the 

 merits of planting fish of various sizes. It has been the consistent 

 view of the Bureau of Fish Conservation that most of the needs of 

 California for trout planting can best be served by the production of 

 fish less than one year old which are planted in relatively large numbers 

 and then attain their growth on the natural food in the streams. At 

 the same time it is apparent to us that this program fails to meet the 

 needs of many accessible and heavily fished areas in the State and for 

 some time our work has been directed toward meeting these new needs. 



The production of catchable sized fish for planting in California 

 is made difficult by certain extremes of conditions that exist in the 

 State. First of all, satisfactory water supplies for year round hatchery 

 operation are difficult to find. Most of our hatcheries now in existence 

 utilize stream water which in the nature of the case varies greatly in 

 temperature from summer to winter. At the lower elevations, that 

 are accessible for operation during the winter months, temperatures 

 are excessively high during the summer months and difficulty is encoun- 

 tered in rearing fish there after August 1st. On the other hand, 



