Rose Creek hatchery home to kokes

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks reports that 3.8 million fertilized eggs from kokanee salmon are now incubating at the Rose Creek Hatchery site.

The eggs were collected at Lake Mary Ronan, a popular fishing destination and a major source for kokanee egg collection. Biologists collected the eggs from kokanee females and the eggs were fertilized by milt from male kokanee collected at the same time.

More than 40,000 adult male and female kokanee were handled during this operation.

About 792 pounds of eggs were fertilized, rinsed, picked, sterilized, enumerated and placed into incubators.

The Rose Creek Hatchery, on Riverside Road between Bigfork and Creston, was put back in operation several years ago after laying idle for about three decades. About half the eggs will be moved to the Flathead Lake Salmon Hatchery in Somers. The capacity of both hatcheries is needed to accommodate the high level of fish production.

Kokanee eggs typically take more than a month and a half to hatch in 50 degree water. They are shipped overnight when they reach the “eyed” stage — when the pigment in the eyes of embryonic kokanee can be seen through the egg shell. Properly packaged eyed eggs can withstand the typical rigors of the shipping process.

Eggs will be provided for lakes east of the Divide, the Big Springs Trout Hatchery in Lewistown, and the states of Utah and Wyoming — the latter primarily to bolster kokanee populations in Flaming Gorge Reservoir, on the Green River.

Once the eggs hatch, the young kokanee are reared to two- or three-inch fingerlings and released into waters with very little or no natural reproductive capability. Many lakes in Northwest Montana, including Lake Koocanusa and Little Bitterroot Lake, have naturally reproducing populations of kokanee where stocking is unnecessary.

For more information, contact Mark Kornick, Flathead Lake Salmon Hatchery, at 837-3744 or 871-5110.