Noodlings & Natterings from the Edge: Hatching Fish in Jackson WY

It's been a long time since I've posted anything here, having mostly (a) ignored the blog in favor of not publishing the drivel of daily travails and travels, or (b) handled travel updates via brief, more easily managed emails with a couple of picture attachments. Internet access for uploading photo essays can be somewhat flaky and bandwidth limited on the road, but we're finally at a place that not only has interesting things to post, but also kinda-fast-enough DSL to let me do it.

We're in beautiful Jackson, WY, for the summer, volunteering at the federal fish hatchery. We work three days on, three days off, trading time with another pair of full-time RVrs whom we almost never see because of our back-to-back work schedules. The exchange seems fair...full hookups, gorgeous views, and access to hiking in the Tetons and Yellowstone in exchange for giving daily guided tours and misc jobs like mowing and weed-whacking.

The photos below tell the story.

Our host sites. We're on the left. We park the truck away from the rig to enjoy an unobstructed view of the National Elk Refuge when we take breakfast from folding chairs on our "veranda."

Our veranda view, looking east. Afternoons often bring thunderstorms from the west that darken the sky but mostly skirt our direct area, dropping rain instead onto Jackson 3 miles south, or Grand Teton National Park, about 3 miles north.

The Jackson National Fish Hatchery. The area abuts the National Elk Refuge and covers about 40 acres. The building at the left is our guest greeting area and houses the hatchery's invasive species displays. There's also a fishing pond, the main hatchery building, "raceways" where they keep the broodstock and most of the fish waiting for release into area lakes, and several outbuildings.

Looking north across the pond. The Quonset-hut-looking things are tents that cover the exterior fish runs for summer shade.

Ken, in his official tour guide attire. We also wear a branded windbreaker, which comes in handy when the winds gust through at 30+ mph, adding extra dimension to the outside portion of our tours.

The only fish this hatchery breeds: Snake River cutthroat trout, a specialized subspecies of the Yellowstone cutthroat. (It's called a cutthroat because of that little red slash of color along its jawline.) The hatchery releases more than 400,000 fish a year. About 80% of them go to the Palisades Dam Reservoir to the south, and the rest are distributed to about 15 local lakes in WY and ID many miles north of the hatchery. (The federal Palisades Dam is the reason why this hatchery exists: the hatchery was required and built as part of mitigation against habitat damage when the dam was constructed in the 1950s. It has since become important in alleviating fishing pressures and in keeping the subspecies from becoming endangered.)

Inside the hatchery building. Each long tank holds from 7,000 6-8" fish (from last season's spawn) to 24,000 fry (from this season's spawn). The place stinks of fish food (ground-up fish) that drops regularly from automatic feeders. The feeder mechanisms clack very loudly, making many visitors jump. Amazingly, we lost all sense of smell for the food after two days. Our younger visitors remind us of it by holding their noses when coming through.

These are just a few from last year's spawn, in a tank of 7,000. Like their 393,000 other friends, they will hang out at the hatchery for the rest of summer, awaiting their truck trip to lakes in the fall.

Tens of thousands of one-year-olds are in the outside raceways, along with about 2,000 three- and four-year-olds that they have for broodstock this year. This hatchery covers its raceways with tents. Other hatcheries have them enclosed in a building, semi-open under a pavilion roof, or completely uncovered and open to the elements.

Some of the four-year-old males enjoying the sunshine at the front of their raceway. They're about 3-4 pounds at this age.

A peek inside one of the broodstock raceways, where they hand-spawn the fish. Ken and I had the good fortune to help with the spawning one week. Picture five adults dressed in hip waders, over-sized oil slickers, and semi-waterproof gloves standing hip deep in steadily moving, 48-degree water, jostling among 700+ good-sized fish on each side of the concrete barrier, squirting eggs and sperm from slimy, semi-sedated trout into Walmart-stock oil pans lined up on the barrier wall...for two hours. It actually was quite interesting and enjoyable, but my hands got so numb with cold that I couldn't push all the eggs out of my last two fish and had to hand them off to the veteran full-timers to finish off.

The pond is man-made and crystal clear because of native algae that consume all the bad stuff from the water so fish can thrive there. The hatchery stocks the pond with their broodstock. This year, they put in two hundred three-year-olds in preparation for the season. Anyone with a Wyoming fishing license can fish, take home one per license, and catch/release the rest. These trout are very smart though, and not easily enticed to a hook. Once dumped into the pond, the fish are "wild"--no food from the hatchery, so they suck down a lot of the bugs and gnats that swarm the place.

Three older cutthroat who have managed to survive pond-living for a year or more. They actually live in the ditch that feeds the pond from the raceway drainage system. Unlike many hatcheries with a limited or poor water supply that requires recirculation and/or filtration, this hatchery enjoys a constant flow of nearly pure water from a natural spring two miles away. The water makes a one-way trip through the hatchery tanks and raceways, drains into--then out of--the pond, and feeds into Flat Creek on the Elk Refuge. From there it heads through Jackson and south to join the Snake River system. Pretty slick.

Opening day for the pond was a mob scene--June 7, Free Fishing Day for Wyoming. The Game and Fish Dept (separate from the hatchery's Fish and Wildlife Dept) hosted their annual half-day education/fishing program at the hatchery. Nearly 250 children, plus accompanying adults, attended, and more than half of them stayed to fish. Pity the poor quiet-loving trout! However, only three were caught for take-home, and only four or five for catch/release that day.

This boy had two catch/releases before nabbing this one. He intended to keep it, but the fish wriggled off the barbless hook once Dad placed it on the grass, and it flopped back into the water to be fished another day.

The hatchery is home to many other temporary or permanent residents, including osprey, herons, and bald eagles that perch on fence posts or do flyovers. This is one of many tree swallows during a rare pause from its bug-eating acrobatics over the water.

Cliff swallows, in the midst of building their mud nests

A goldfinch pauses for a sip.

This solitary goldeneye duck was busy eating at 6 in the morning.

He made a quite show of shaking off water after each dive for goodies on the bottom of the pond.

A camera-shy mountain bluebird took over the nesting box...

...and had a favorite but short-lived post.

Hyperactive ground squirrels, called chislers by the locals, make honeycomb of the soils.

Our other duties include occasional mowing and weeding, which Ken does to keep busy. While he weed-whacks, I give tours to groups of 1 to 10 people at a time. On non-maintenance days, he also helps with the tours.

A day off and good weather gets us out on a hike to Taggart Lake, with the Tetons in view. Bits of the trail were still thick with snow on this early June visit.