Iron River National Fish Hatchery is a combination brood stock and production facility tasked with raising lake trout and coaster brook trout to restore depleted Great Lakes populations.

This fall, 728 mature lake trout from three different strains, (Apostle Island, Traverse Island and Klondike Reef), produced 3.4 million green eggs.  Of these, 2.56 million reached the eyed egg stage with 1.6 million to be raised here to the fingerling and yearling stages and 200,000 to be transferred to Pendills Creek NFH . 

The remaining eyed eggs were shipped to federal, state and tribal partners.  This year’s lake trout spawning season ran from October through early November with peak spawning occurring in mid-October.  All lake trout are air-spawned using compressed oxygen injected into the body cavity to gently force the eggs out with minimal stress to the fish. A modified one-on-one spawning method is used to insure maximum genetic diversity in the offspring. 

Nearly 1,600 coaster brook trout spawned from late October through early December and produced 2.4 million green eggs.  Of these, 1.7 million reached the eyed egg stage.  Eyed eggs where shipped to Genoa NFH, Whittlesey Creek NWR, the Iowa DNR, Purdue University, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, North Carolina Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and Grand Portage Indian Community.  Over 480,000 eggs were kept at the hatchery to provide fry and fingerlings for restoration programs. 

Both strains of coaster brook trout, (Siskiwit Bay and Tobin Harbor) were developed from populations located in Isle Royale National Park. The brook trout are spawned by hand-stripping the adults and are mated using the one-on-one spawning method.

As an added fish health precaution, all eggs that were shipped out of the Great Lakes Basin were treated with iodophor iodine and rinsed with well water.  This was done as part of our Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point program.