FILLMORE FARM BREEDS FISH TO BECOME - WELL - DINNER.

Byline: EUGENE TONG  Staff Writer

FILLMORE - They wiggle and splash, thousands to a trough, united by a single thought - feed me.

"They're hungry," said Ed Toves, assistant manager at the Fillmore Fish Hatchery, as he surveyed an outdoor rainbow trout pond on a recent morning. The fish react with each approaching footstep, stirring ripples along the surface of their 100-foot rearing pond.

"The fish are always hungry. All they do is eat and grow."

Toves is part of a crew of eight state Department of Fish and Game staffers at the 64-year-old hatchery along the Santa Clara River a mile east of Fillmore charged with raising more than 1 million trout a year for anglers throughout Southern California.

Though not exactly sport fishing in the wild, the hatcheries satisfy the public's demand for fishing without overtaxing California's natural waters, as state officials intended.

When the fish are about a year old - about 10 inches in length - they're released into the lakes and streams between Kern and Orange counties. Last week, some 3,600 rejoined nature at Castaic Lake - they'll either survive to spawn as their parents had, or be a meal for the ospreys, bass or fishers.

"It's straightly professional," Toves said. "There are a little too many to name."

While the trout are nurtured in Fillmore, they were spawned some 200 to 300 miles away in either the Mount Whitney or Hot Creek hatcheries in the eastern High Sierra.

Trays of 350,000 translucent orange trout eggs, each about the size of a cultivated pearl, arrive four times a year by truck and head straight for the incubator.

They'll sit there for about two weeks - most will hatch into sac fries, named for the nutrient sacs hanging from their bellies that serve as their prime food source - until they're ready for the rearing ponds outside.

"That's what they're all living on right now," said Toves. "As soon as they absorb the sac, we'll release them."

Just outside the incubator shed are two rows of concrete ponds - some 4,000 feet total - where the trout will spend the next year eating and growing in 59-degree water pumped out of four on-site wells.

They sit under a protective cage of bird netting. On the other side, egrets and herons gathered around a drainage culvert - they know a good meal when they see one.

A truck rolls past the ponds three to 10 times a day, spitting out meal. The pond bubbles in hunger as the mix of vitamin-enriched animal and vegetable matter hits the water. The fish grow about an inch a month on the 1,500 pounds of food the hatchery scatters each day, Toves said.

"It's just like taking care of a baby," he said. "You try to ensure their health and well being, and to make sure we have a good product for the public."

Besides feeding, Toves and his crew have to keep an eye out for diseases such as gill bacteria and scale mold.

"The fish need constant attention," he said. "We're here for the angling public. A happy fisherman is what we're striving for."

Come stocking time, grown trout are poured into a truck-mounted tank for transfer to area reservoirs. Last week, about 3,600 graduated, and fish and wildlife technician Stephan DeLongfield was ready to offer them a lift to Castaic Lake.

He checked both the tank's and the lake's temperatures. If it's too low or too high, the fish might end up in shock. The hatchery doesn't stock fish in the summer.

"They get really lethargic in the heat," he said. "But 74 degrees is the cutoff."

The tank was 57 degrees, and the lake 60 degrees - just right, and DeLongfield uncovered the pipe on the side of the tank. Hundreds of trout hurled into the shallow edge of the lake, though some took a bit of pole-prodding before making for deeper waters.

It's a hard life for trout in the wild - they're prey to other fish and birds. In fact, moments after their release, an osprey swooped down and snatched one out of the lake.

"He'll take it back to his nest," DeLongfield said. "Not all of them will get eaten right away. But a good number will feed the bass in here."

And there are fishermen, such as Parker Wright. The 15-year-old from Laguna Niguel was bass fishing lakeside when he chanced upon the stocking - he had a bite within seconds.

"It's a feisty one," he said, reeling one in. He unhooked it and set it free.

"I don't call it fishing at this point," DeLongfield said. "I call it catching."

Wright said he has been fishing for six years, and counts a 50-pound albacore caught in the oceans of Mexico among his prizes.

"I want to become a professional some day," he said. "It takes technique and patience."

Still, a few lucky ones might survive the year, DeLongfield said.

"The big trouts - we call them holdovers - they might last a couple years," he said. "They'll come back and live to spawn another day."

eugene.tong(at)dailynews.com

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CAPTION(S):

8 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color -- ran in Valley edition only) At left, sac fries - baby trout living off of feed sacks in their bellies - are brought into the Fillmore Fish Hatchery by the hundreds of thousands every year. In 10 months, the fish will be carefully nurtured for release into lakes and streams.

(3 -- color -- ran in Valley edition only) At top, about 3,600 trout from the hatchery are released into Castaic Lake. Above, Parker Wright 1/3 a 15-year-old who aspires to go pro - catches a trout and lets it go, hoping to nab a bass which might come in to feed on the new arrivals.

(4 -- 7; 4 -- 5 -- color in AV and SAC editions only; 6 ran in Valley edition only; 7 -- color in SAC edition only -- ran in Valley and SAC editions only) Above, Fillmore Fish Hatchery assistant manager Ed Toves points across the pools where trout are bred over a 10-month period, before being released into streams and lakes from Kern to Orange counties. At left, Parker Wright, a 15-year-old from Laguna Niguel, makes quick work of catching trout just released into Castaic Lake. Below, a "no fishing" sign keeps guard at the hatchery. At bottom, far left, a blue heron patiently waits for any of the hatchery's fish to slip through a gates for an easy meal.

(8 -- color -- ran in AV edition only) The Fillmore Fish Hatchery has provided lakes and sportsmen from Kern to Orange counties with a seemingly endless supply of trout since 1942, as indicated by the inscription on a rock outside the institution.

David Crane/Staff Photographer