St. Croix Falls State Fish Hatchery
Hatchery Hours
7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekends
Groups tours welcome, please call ahead at least one week prior
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) 483-3535 or email Jeff Tabat
Since 1919, cold, clear water and lot of improvements have helped to make St. Croix Falls hatchery one of Wisconsin´s primary trout brood stations. As a brood station, adult trout are kept on the property and their eggs and sperm are collected each year to produce fertilized eggs.
St. Croix Falls is the only source for domestic strain brook trout in the state.
Visiting the hatchery
When visiting the hatchery, you can take a self-guided tour of rearing tanks where 325,000 brook and brown trout are raised each year. Although there are no picnic facilities 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 one-quarter mile north of the hatchery.
St. Croix Falls is one of only two hatcheries in the state to raise domestic strain brown trout.
Fish Production
About 1 million brown trout eggs and 600,000 brook trout eggs are produced at St. Croix each year. Although many of the eggs are transferred to other Wisconsin hatcheries, about 700,000 trout are raised at this hatchery annually for stocking into Wisconsin's waters.
Once a year in the fall, brook and brown trout are spawned. After approximately 50 days, the eggs hatch and by spring, the fish will have grown to yearling size.
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