The Windsor Locks hatchery on Kettle Brook was an enormous success thanks to its fabulous water supply. A number of underground springs supplied 300,000 gallons of water a day to the hatchery before it finally spilled out into Kettle Brook. The water was crystal clear and its temperature was a constant 53 degrees Fahrenheit yearround. Each November, the hatchery's 5,000 breeding trout delivered two million eggs, half of which would hatch out the following spring.
Suckers have no teeth and big lips, so they feed by vacuuming their food from riverbeds. They prefer clean, unpolluted waters and often swim with trout.
An important distinction between the fishing of the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, and that of a much later period, lay in the economic importance of trout, Atlantic salmon, and shad to the family table. The fish commissioners were proud of the fact that these fish were often sold in local markets cheaper than “suckers” (freshwater fish of the Catostomidae family). Moreover, they wrote, “it cannot be many years before good edible fish will be produced (in Connecticut waters) in such abundance as to be within the means of the poorest.” Beyond that, the fish commissioners were keenly aware of the symbiosis of good fishing and tourism, stating, “the state needs but plenty of fish and game to make it still more attractive to summer and fall visitors from other states.”
In 1905, the legislature approved funds for a lobster hatchery at Noank. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, the state's hatcheries furnished brook, rainbow, and lake trout along with small-mouthed bass, yellow perch, American shad, and 125 million lobsters. A total of 130,585,830 and fry were added to the natural compliment of fish and crustaceans.
“Fingerling” means very young fish. The term most often refers to a baby trout or salmon that has reached the length of a man's finger.
Henry Fenton and a local worker, Gilbert Sterling, originally ran the Windsor Locks plant, but were replaced by William Tripp, who had been manager of the hatcheries at South Wareham, Massachusetts. Tripp was head of the Fisheries Division from 1898 to 1923. At that time, John Wheelock Titcomb—a man with thirty-four years experience in fish breeding in countries as far away as Argentina—became superintendent and William Tripp stayed on as the foreman of the facility at Windsor Locks.
The Kettle Brook Hatchery in Windsor Locks was a great success, but eventually deteriorated for the exact reason that it was such a world-beater from the start— the water supply. By 1923, the copious spring water had dwindled to a fraction of the 215 gallons a minute it furnished in 1897. Beyond this insuperable problem, fertilizer runoff from nearby tobacco fields despoiled the dwindling supply. Pollution regulation and source-to-sea cleanups were decades away. It was time for a new hatchery.
Loading a trout-stocking truck
Attempts to build hatcheries in Salisbury and Waterbury proved fruitless, and in the fall of 1923, the state bought land for a second facility in Burlington. The main hatchery was fabricated from the former dance pavilion at Electric Park in Rockville.
John Wheelock Titcomb's tenure was notable for the construction of the new state hatchery at Burlington and the leasing of trout streams throughout the state. While it was quite fashionable for farmers and sportsman to maintain their own trout streams and ponds, this behavior was circumvented in great measure by the leasing of streams for public use. “Gentleman George” McLean, governor of Connecticut from 1901 to 1903, had his own private fishing pond on his estate in Simsbury. Ineligible for statebred trout, he paid $4 per thousand trout brought in from a hatchery on Cape Cod.
On the financial side, in the first ten months of 1924, there were 44,671 angling licenses sold in Connecticut. Residents—totaling 33,583—paid $1; non-residents—715 with land in the state—paid the same; another 4,312 non-residents paid $2. The $49,013 in licensing revenues completely paid for the state's hatcheries program.
Titcomb's successor, Dr. Russell Hunter of Wethersfield —whose tenure stretched from 1938 to 1953—summed up the role of head of the Fisheries Division succinctly in 1951 when he stated that his primary job was “enforcement.” He also went on to say, “One of the biggest problems…is to rearrange nature to please fishermen…lakes and ponds are so equipped as to support practically a fixed weight of meat (fish) at all times. The ponds provide algae and plants for the plant-eating fish and enough plant-eating fish to sustain the fish-eating fish. Year after year, this underwater battle for survival goes on and the weight of fish in the pond stays about the same. The problem…is to rearrange all of this so that the fixed amount of fish will be in the right species, weights and limits to please the fishermen.” During Dr. Hunter's time, only half of the trout needed were supplied by the hatcheries at Windsor Locks, Burlington, and Kensington. The rest were purchased from commercial breeders. By the early 1950s, enforcement officers spot-checking anglers' catches throughout the state had risen to thirty-five.
In order to meet the growing need for trout, small rearing stations were built in Farmington and Voluntown. Still, by 1970, the existing hatcheries could only meet half of the state's trout stocking needs. Another 30 percent came from commercial growers, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supplied the last 20 percent. Since the state was raising trout for half the cost of those bought from commercial growers, it seemed like a particularly opportune time to erect another hatchery.
I love to visit the hatcheries. Both hatcheries give free tours to the public seven days a week. Be sure to call ahead—Burlington Hatchery 860-673-2340 or Quinebaug Valley Hatchery:860-564-7542. The Quinebaug Valley facility has exhibits that are fun to tour. In central Connecticut, a trip to the aquarium at Cabela's in East Hartford is well worthwhile. Their trout are from Rowledge Pond Aquaculture of Sandy Hook, a private hatchery
The Burlington Hatchery worked the western part of the state, and the Windsor Locks facility—older and smaller—stocked the northern reaches; so an enormous new trout-breeding plant in eastern Connecticut made sense. On 1,200 acres between the Quinebaug and Moosup rivers, the massive Quinebaug Valley Hatchery in Plainfield was completed in 1971. At the time—and even as late as the mid-1980s—it was the biggest fish hatchery east of the Mississippi River. That same year, the Kettle Brook Hatchery closed and the Town of Windsor Locks bought the land. Not long after, the Kensington Hatchery began raising Atlantic salmon as Connecticut's part of an interstate/federal program to re-introduce Atlantic salmon back to the waters of the Northeast. Connecticut essentially has only two trout hatcheries now—Burlington (15 miles west of Hartford) and Quinebaug Valley (38 miles east of Hartford) in Plainville.
A boy bringing a trout to net
If Connecticut is the gold standard in hatcheries and trout stocking, how do neighboring states fare? For many years, a New York visitor's fishing license permitted angling in many trout streams in the Adirondacks on a whirlwind expedition to the Empire State's northernmost reaches— the fabled Battenkill (on the New York side), the lovely and exciting West Branch of the Ausable, the North Branch of the Saranac, the Salmon (near Malone, where mobster Dutch Shultz once stood trial for bootlegging) and finally the Chateauguay River, in the apple country near the Canadian border. This fishing tour of the Adirondacks is not what it used to be. Sad to say, trout fishing is on the wane.
The same is true of other once-famous trout fishing areas of the Northeast. Anglers and state biologists suspect that acid rain, pesticide runoff, silt from stream bank erosion, and even geese have taken a toll on the streams and rivers. At present, states that are twice the size of Connecticut are stocking about half as many trout. The fisheries divisions of the New England states and New York are all trying to rebuild habitat and reinvigorate their trout fishing programs, but acid rain, deforestation, and budget cutbacks are impeding these efforts.