Genoa National Fish Hatchery crew checking a net during the spring broodstock collection.

The National Fish Hatchery System (NFHS) produces a wide range of fish, amphibian and freshwater mussel species to support multiple aquatic resource management goals.  These goals include producing animals for endangered species recovery, restoration of imperiled populations, supporting cooperative management initiatives with tribal, federal and state cooperators and providing and enhancing recreational fishing opportunities on National Wildlife Refuges or other federal lands.

The Genoa National Fish Hatchery (NFH) produces walleye, sauger, and northern pike to meet management objectives in endangered mussel recovery, cooperative management programs, and tribal trust responsibilities across much of the U.S.  The egg sources for these ongoing programs are wild stocks of fish located in pool 9 of the Upper Mississippi River within the confines of the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge.  The need to collect wild fish in a system as large and dynamic as the Mississippi River offers special challenges to hatchery crews. The migratory nature of riverine fishes, highly fluctuating river levels, and natural population variability all affect the annual success of this operation. Despite these and other challenges the hatchery crew annually collects millions northern pike, sauger, and walleye eggs to support fishery management programs.   When the last of the ice was leaving the mighty Mississippi in the last week of March, the hatchery crew began the annual tradition of setting up to 60 fyke and hoop nets for collecting brood fish.  The nets are tended, repaired and repositioned as needed on a daily basis for about 30 days. 

  The resulting eggs and fish from these operations will be transferred to other cooperators in five states over the coming year to meet a wide range of fishery and research needs.  Every year, to ensure healthy populations of walleye, sauger and northern pike remain in the Pool 9 egg collection areas, ten percent of the total egg take that Genoa processes returns to the river in the form of newly hatched fry.   The hatchery typically has a hatch rate of over 60 percent, while wild fish eggs typically hatch out in percentage rates of much less than 10 percent.  The resulting increase in fry survival ensures that the station is not harming wild populations through its collection efforts. 

Additionally, since 2003 the eggs taken have been subject to a strict and robust biosecurity and disinfection procedure to limit any potential disease transmission from the wild stocks into the hatchery. 

The dedicated staff at the Genoa NFH use their skills and the Mighty Mississippi River to bolster America's fisheries both at the regional and national levels.