Morgan Cooperative Brook Trout Hatchery


Elliot Acres Road, Morgan VT (google map)

History

Up to 1932 the so-called eyeing station at Morgan was operated for only a short time each year in carrying salmon and trout eggs to the eyed stage before transporting them to the hatcheries. The Morgan plant was of temporary construction, but by the mid-thirties remodeling seemed necessary if use of the station was to continue.

The roof was rebuilt, the walls repaired and the trough supports replaced. These repairs were made as economically as possible. By 1947 the land had been leased at Morgan to provide a permanent eyeing and rearing station. A building was erected and in 1950 this station was operated as a brook trout rearing station with very encouraging results.

Brook trout fry were taken from Salisbury to Morgan and as growth made thinning necessary they were taken to Canaan, Bald Hill and some to York Pond as replacements for losses at that station.

Director George W. Davis hailed the new policy at Morgan as the answer to fall stocking of several ponds in the northeast sector of the state. He pointed out in his report at that time that it became possible to stock as fingerlings more than 200,000 brook trout that would have been planted as fry.

The hatchery was abandoned and torn down sometime in the 1970’s. The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Conservation Group rebuilt the building on the old site with the help of volunteers and donated materials in 1991. A $10,000 grant from Fish America paid for incubators and tanks, and the VT Fish and Wildlife Department supplied the eggs.

The first fish were put out in April of 1993 (160,000) with the assistance of a number of members and youngsters through the local Boy and Girl Scout troops. Our volunteer hatchery technicians spend up to two hours daily cleaning the tanks, feeding the fish, and picking dead fish and eggs. They perform this duty from the end of November until the fish are all stocked, usually mid-April. Since the first stocking in 1993, more than 100,000 brook trout fry have been raised and stocked from the hatchery each year.