St. Croix Falls State Fish Hatchery

Hatchery information

Hatchery Hours

Open 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday

Hatchery Location

230 River Street
PO Box 397
St. Croix Falls, WI 54024

Enter the hatchery from River Street in downtown
St. Croix Falls

Contact

Call (715) 494-3257 or email Eric Brandt

Visiting

 

When visiting the hatchery, you can take a self-guided tour of rearing tanks where 325,000 brook and brown trout are raised yearly. Although no picnic facilities are on site, you can find camping and picnic areas at the nearby Interstate Park. Additionally, the city of St. Croix Fall's hydroelectric dam and viewing area are a one-quarter mile north of the hatchery.

History

Since 1919, cold, clear water and many improvements have helped to make St. Croix Falls hatchery one of Wisconsin´s primary trout brood stations. Adult trout are kept on the property as a brood station, and their eggs and sperm are collected each year to produce fertilized eggs.

Fish production

About 1 million brown trout eggs and 600,000 brook trout eggs are produced yearly at St. Croix. Although many of the eggs are transferred to other Wisconsin hatcheries, about 700,000 trout are raised at this hatchery annually for stocking in Wisconsin's waters.

Brook and brown trout spawn once a year in the fall, brook and brown trout are spawned. After approximately 50 days, by spring the eggs hatch by spring, and the fish grow to yearling size.