Georgia Trout Hatchery Receives 222,000 Eggs From Montana

The Summerville Trout Hatchery just received 220,000 rainbow trout eggs from Ennis, Montana. It is the first of four egg shipments that will be used to replace the lost fish and stock north Georgia trout streams.

Despite losing more than 17,000 trout in a Labor Day Weekend flood at its Summerville Trout Hatchery, WRD is making good on its promise that it will not let the near disaster affect trout stockings in 2023.

The hatchery just received 220,000 rainbow trout eggs from Ennis, Montana. It is the first of four egg shipments that will be used to replace the lost fish and stock north Georgia trout streams. 

The shipment of 220,000 trout eggs is now in hatching jars at the Summerville hatchery. In those jars, the eggs are gently rolled in a water flow. That keeps the eggs clean and well oxygenated as they incubate.

The Summerfield Trout Hatchery in Chattooga County was hit with 14 inches of rain in less than eight hours on Labor Day weekend.  That caused its trout raceways and production ponds to overflow and that turned the facility into one big lake. It was only by quick action by hatchery personnel that saved the entire facility from an even worse loss. Personnel were netting fish in puddles and asphalt roadways.

Of the 72,000 trout being raised at the facility, approximately 55,000 survived. The majority of the fish that did escape were small fish that were to be stocked in 2023.

The Summerfield Hatchery in Chattooga County was hit with 14 inches of rain in less than eight hours on Labor Day weekend.