ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Next time you unhook a feisty rainbow trout, consider where the gorgeous rouge-dappled fish spent its early days.
A pristine Alaska lake?
A rocky river bottom with gin-clear water flowing by?
In fact, nearly three of four rainbows pulled from Alaska streams and lakes grew up in a big concrete run at one of Alaska's fish hatcheries.
Want to find a wild rainbow near Anchorage? Get in your car and drive at least 30 miles out of town.
Fish hatcheries are responsible for 70 percent of the rainbows and 20 percent of the king salmon landed by anglers here, and beginning next year new hatcheries in Anchorage and Fairbanks will start producing more fish for sport anglers.
The new $96 million William Jack Hernandez Hatchery is expected to open next June on the north bank of Ship Creek, just a long misplayed drive from a fairway at Eagleglen Golf Course.
Fourteen employees staffing the facility will grow more than rainbows in the 105 circular fish tanks ranging up to 26 feet in diameter _ all housed in a cavernous 141,511-square-foot building. King and silver salmon, plus arctic char, grayling and a few lake trout will all develop here.
Sorry, no pike.
Don't expect anglers notice huge changes immediately — after all, the fish have to grow.
"The first fish will be grayling and rainbow trout fingerling in the summer of 2011, with the first rainbow trout catchables hitting local lakes in the spring of 2012,'' said Jeff Milton, the hatchery program supervisor for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. "Bottom line is that we are still two years out from returning to previous production levels.''
The stocking levels have dropped at least 30 percent in the last six years.
Eventually, though, Milton said he expects to be stocking 50 percent more fish than today.
"What anglers are going to notice, I think, is that we're going to get back to bigger fish,'' he said.
Warm water is the catalyst. In the hatchery business, the link between fast-growing fish and warm water couldn't be stronger.
In warm, hatchery biologists can grow 9-inch rainbows in 11 months. Without warm water, it can take two years to reach 4 inches.
And since the heat-generating power plants on Elmendorf Air Force Base and Fort Richardson closed in 2004 and 2005, the Ship Creek water temperature could dip as low as 31.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
The ideal for fast-growing rainbows is 58 degrees.
"We'll be able to drive growth quickly and with much more control,'' Milton said. "If you have warm water, they'll grow an inch per month. With cold water, they might shrink.
"It now takes us three years to rear a rainbow trout to catchable size,'' Milton said.
Once the hatchery opens, people like Keith Graham will be happier.
"Overall, it will be very positive deal,'' said Graham, co-owner of the local fishing shop World Wide Angler on East 63rd Avenue. "If they can pump out some nice fish, shops like ours will benefit. People who don't have the means to drive two hours out of town will benefit. A lot of fly fishermen who enjoy going out for the sport of it will benefit.''
Locals and Lower 48 anglers in town for a summer stopover sometimes find as many closures as openings. Right now, for instance: Fishing on Ship Creek from Chugach Power Plant Dam to Reeve Boulevard is closed through Sept. 30 to protect spawning rainbow trout and salmon broodstock.
The rainbow trout, arctic char and grayling bag limit in Anchorage-area lakes has been cut to two fish of each species.
Campbell and Chester creeks, including University Lake, are limited to catch-and- release for rainbows.
"Every day people come in here and want to know where do we go,'' Graham said.
Anchorage fish hatcheries go back decades.
The Fort Richardson State Fish Hatchery downstream of the Glenn Highway on Ship Creek was built in 1958 and later expanded. Fish and Game took over the hatchery's operation in the late 1960s.
The Elmendorf State Hatchery on the north bank of Ship Creek beside the new facility began in 1965 with three small circular ponds producing rainbows and king salmon.
Milton estimates the new hatchery will serve the state's need 30 to 50 years.
"I've been humbled by the fact we've been able to get these two needed facilities built and by the investment the state put into it,'' said Milton, referring to the new $45 million Ruth Burnett Sport Fish Hatchery in Fairbanks.
State sport fisheries director Charlie Swanton told the Associated Press last year that the state Division of Sport Fish was still determining how it would operate the new facilities. The division spends about $2.3 million a year to run the hatcheries at Fort Richardson and Elmendorf. It will cost about $4 million to maintain the new hatcheries — $2.3 million in Anchorage, $1.7 million in Fairbanks.
Instead of transferring fish from the old facility to the new one, biologists will begin with eggs at the William Jack Hernandez Hatchery to minimize any prospect of disease.
Once the facilities are up and running, timing is a perpetual challenge for hatchery managers. If they can get rainbows to spawn four months earlier than they would in the wild, they'll have fish to release soon after ice-out.
Arctic char tend to be an ideal fish, growing quickly in cold water and able to thrive at four times the density that rainbows prefer.
"It will provide great fishing opportunities and an alternative to keeping wild fish to eat,'' said Mark Kalke, Trout Unlimited's Southeast Alaska program direct.
