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Picture of the day -
June 21, 2006
Marion State Fish Hatchery - Marion, Virginia
Marion State Fish Hatchery - Marion, VA
Today we feature three photos that I took yesterday on a fun family outing to
the State Fish Hatchery in
Marion, Virginia. I had a
great time watching my wonderful granddaughter
Olivia toss in handfuls of fish
food and then react to the huge schools of splashing trout as they jostled for
position trying to catch it as it sank towards the bottom of the pools. I
remember doing exactly the same thing many years ago when
my dad would take
me to visit the hatchery.
A few of the 1 million+ trout at the Marion facility.
The Marion State Fish Hatchery has over one million trout in various stages of
development at any given
time. They are sorted by size and variety and held in a large number of long,
rectangular pools of creek and spring water that are located on the hatchery
property. When the fish are large enough for stocking, they are transported to
Virginia's trout streams and released. The Marion facility is the largest "brood
hatchery" in the entire state!
Marion State Fish Hatchery superintendent Aaron Vanarnum.
It was almost closing time when we arrived at the hatchery so I quickly gave
Olivia a handful of fish food to toss into the water. We picked one of the
numerous pools and she threw the food in to the waiting trout. It was quite a
sight watching thousands of fish jump up and compete with one another for the tasty morsels!
We walked around and looked at the various sizes of trout until closing time
rolled around, then we began to make our way back to the car to leave. But when
we got back to the parking lot we were greeted by the Hatchery Superintendent, a
very nice gentleman by the name of Aaron Vanarnum.
Aaron introduced himself and invited us in to see the many thousands of smaller
fish that were housed in tanks inside the main building. Even though the
hatchery was officially closed and Aaron and his crew had had a long, hard day,
he generously took the time to answer our many questions and give us tons of
interesting information about the trout raising process. It quickly became
obvious that Aaron sure knows his trout - and he really enjoys sharing his
vast pool of knowledge with others! Thanks a bunch, Aaron for making our visit to the Marion
State Fish Hatchery an experience to remember!
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