RANDOLPH, N.Y. — The Randolph Fish Hatchery is one of two hatcheries in the state that raises trout used to stock public waterways in New York.
"Today we're doing brook trout," said hatchery manager Rich Borner.
The brook trout, New York's state fish, is one of three trout species including brown and rainbow that are raised at Randolph. It's a process that starts with harvesting some 3.5 million fish eggs or roe every fall.
The team at Randolph started in September.
"And those eggs are shipped to all the other state hatcheries, there's 12," Borner said.
The fish are specifically raised for breeding and are called broodstock. The females and males live in in-ground tanks on the hatchery grounds and are pre-sorted before harvest and fertilization.
The hatchery uses light control to trick the fish into spawning a little earlier than they would naturally, late fall compared to early fall.
Additionally, the female trout are sorted based on their readiness on the day of harvest.
"They'll shoot the eggs out but you can kind of tell," said one of the Randolph fish culturists.
The males and females are then placed in smaller tubs, a handful at a time, and anesthetized to prevent injury to the fish and make it easier for a fish culturist to start the life cycle.
It's a process that Borner said even some anglers don't see or know fully about.
"They don't see this part of the operation so much... and probably don't realize we do as many eggs as we do," he said.
In the wild, the trout would naturally reproduce, but Borner said that ideal conditions aren't always present and the hatchery is a lot better at ensuring survival.
"We try to shoot from anywhere from 75% 'eye up' to some years we get up to 85% survival," Borner said.
It takes about 21 days for a fertilized egg to show signs of life. The term 'eye up' is used to describe when a fish embryo develops visible eyes, at which point the eggs are ready to be sent all over New York.
Without the hatchery system, a lot of lakes and streams Borner said wouldn't have trout in them at all. In the spring, the fish that were raised from eggs the previous year, if not longer, are stocked in all five Western New York counties and the Great Lakes.
The work it took to get them there isn't often noticed.
"We encourage the public to come in and take an opportunity to learn something about the trout that are raised in Western New York," said Borner.