Since it opened in 2001, the Apple Grove facility has allowed fisheries officials to do things they never would have been able to do when all the state's warm-water species were grown at Palestine.
APPLE GROVE - A stream of greenish water gushes through a 10-inch pipe and into a narrow concrete catch basin, where an angled screen pushes some of the flow into a calm back channel. Every few minutes, two technicians pick up a fine-meshed seine, scoop up hundreds of tiny fish from the back channel and transfer them to a tank in a nearby truck.
"You won't believe how much easier this is than the way we got fish out of the ponds at the old facility," said Tim Swisher, manager of West Virginia's Apple Grove State Hatchery.
At the 1940s-era Palestine Hatchery in Wirt County, technicians must don waders and wade through fish-rearing ponds, pushing long seines ahead of them to trap the fish. At Apple Grove, they simply turn a valve, drain the pond and net the fish as they're swept into a catch basin.
Since it opened in 2001, the Apple Grove facility has allowed fisheries officials to do things they never would have been able to do when all the state's warm-water species were grown at Palestine.
"Apple Grove has given us opportunities to raise species we'd never been able to raise, and to stock fish in rivers and lakes we hadn't been able to stock before," said Chris O'Bara, the Division of Natural Resources biologist in charge of warm-water hatcheries.
"For instance, we never would have been able to start stocking native-strain walleye because we simply wouldn't have had the space to grow them.
"Apple Grove also allows us to stock larger catfish than we used to. We used to have to buy channel cats from other hatcheries. Now we can grow all our own. Last but not least, the capacity we have here at Apple Grove has allowed us to expand our largemouth bass stocking program."
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the hatchery in 2001 to compensate West Virginia for environmental damage caused by expansion of the nearby Robert C. Byrd Locks and Dam.
DNR officials knew the facility, with 34 rearing ponds and a 9,272-square-foot building for sorting and staging fish, would dramatically boost the state's stocking capacity. It took a couple of years, however, for Swisher and his two-man staff to learn the facility's quirks.
"At Palestine, all the ponds are unlined, with mud bottoms," he explained. "Here all the ponds are plastic-lined. We found that some species do better in unlined ponds than in lined ponds, and vice-versa."
Swisher and company also learned that the hatchery's water, drawn from five large wells, wasn't very fertile.
"Because the water had low alkalinity, we couldn't grow algae. And without algae, we couldn't grow the zooplankton we needed to feed the fish as they progressed from fry to fingerling size. We found that we have to fertilize the ponds every week to get the algae growth we needed," he said.
APPLE GROVE - A stream of greenish water gushes through a 10-inch pipe and into a narrow concrete catch basin, where an angled screen pushes some of the flow into a calm back channel. Every few minutes, two technicians pick up a fine-meshed seine, scoop up hundreds of tiny fish from the back channel and transfer them to a tank in a nearby truck.
"You won't believe how much easier this is than the way we got fish out of the ponds at the old facility," said Tim Swisher, manager of West Virginia's Apple Grove State Hatchery.
At the 1940s-era Palestine Hatchery in Wirt County, technicians must don waders and wade through fish-rearing ponds, pushing long seines ahead of them to trap the fish. At Apple Grove, they simply turn a valve, drain the pond and net the fish as they're swept into a catch basin.
Since it opened in 2001, the Apple Grove facility has allowed fisheries officials to do things they never would have been able to do when all the state's warm-water species were grown at Palestine.
"Apple Grove has given us opportunities to raise species we'd never been able to raise, and to stock fish in rivers and lakes we hadn't been able to stock before," said Chris O'Bara, the Division of Natural Resources biologist in charge of warm-water hatcheries.
"For instance, we never would have been able to start stocking native-strain walleye because we simply wouldn't have had the space to grow them.
"Apple Grove also allows us to stock larger catfish than we used to. We used to have to buy channel cats from other hatcheries. Now we can grow all our own. Last but not least, the capacity we have here at Apple Grove has allowed us to expand our largemouth bass stocking program."
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the hatchery in 2001 to compensate West Virginia for environmental damage caused by expansion of the nearby Robert C. Byrd Locks and Dam.
DNR officials knew the facility, with 34 rearing ponds and a 9,272-square-foot building for sorting and staging fish, would dramatically boost the state's stocking capacity. It took a couple of years, however, for Swisher and his two-man staff to learn the facility's quirks.
"At Palestine, all the ponds are unlined, with mud bottoms," he explained. "Here all the ponds are plastic-lined. We found that some species do better in unlined ponds than in lined ponds, and vice-versa."
Swisher and company also learned that the hatchery's water, drawn from five large wells, wasn't very fertile.
"Because the water had low alkalinity, we couldn't grow algae. And without algae, we couldn't grow the zooplankton we needed to feed the fish as they progressed from fry to fingerling size. We found that we have to fertilize the ponds every week to get the algae growth we needed," he said.
They quickly discovered that fertilization created a problem of its own.
"The water became too alkaline, and we started getting high pH readings. To bring the pH down to acceptable levels, we have to treat the ponds with dried molasses. The molasses are just acidic enough to put the pH in the range we need."
In its first years of operation, Apple Grove produced only a few species - muskellunge, largemouth bass, hybrid striped bass and walleye.
The list expanded as the staff learned how to use the facility more effectively.
"Now we produce walleye, sauger, largemouth bass, hybrid striped bass, native striped bass, channel catfish, blue catfish, paddlefish, bluegill and black crappie," Swisher said.
The hatchery even boasts a couple of ponds dedicated to growing fathead minnows and goldfish, which are used to feed predatory fish reared to larger sizes.
Some species, however, simply can't adapt to Apple Grove's plastic-lined ponds.
"We've dropped trying to grow muskies," Swisher said. "For some reason they just don't do well here. We turned muskie production back over to Palestine."
Swisher credited his two-man staff - assistant manager Ryan Bosserman and technician Tyler Roberts - for handling the many chores necessary to make the hatchery a success.
"When hatchery managers in other states learn that we have just three full-time employees to manage a facility this size, they laugh. They say, 'You raise all those fish with that crew?' It's something we're pretty proud of," Swisher said.
"The presence of Apple Grove has really expanded the number of species [the DNR] can raise and the number of fish that can be raised. We believe it's been a real plus for the state."
Reach John McCoy at johnmc...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1231.
