AUGUSTA – A hundred thousand trout fry swarm lightning fast at the state’s Governor Hill Fish Hatchery, their silver scales flashing appropriately like coins tumbling from a slot machine.

Governor Hill and Maine’s eight other state-run fish hatcheries produce more than a million trout and salmon each year. They are stocked in lakes and rivers statewide, creating a sport fishing industry that has an estimated $292 million annual impact on the state’s economy.

But anglers complain the state isn’t doing enough to support their sport. State fisheries managers have responded with a plan to make costly investments in growing more and bigger game fish.

Besides making local fishermen happy, the improvements will enable the state to better compete for tourist dollars. In fact, nearly half of Maine fishing licenses sold go to out-of-staters.

In November, voters will be asked to consider a $24 million environmental bond that has earmarked $7 million for hatchery improvement. This likely will be the first of many appeals for funding as the state embarks on a 15-year, $20 million overhaul of its hatchery system, said Steven Wilson, a biologist who serves as superintendent of fish hatcheries for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

“We just can’t do it within our budget. … For big change, you need an influx of money,” Wilson said. “If people want more fish, this is how we’re going to have to do it.”

100 years of hatcheries

With abundant cold-water streams and deep glacial lakes, Maine has always been able to boast some of the best wild trout and salmon habitat east of the Mississippi.

“There are natural trout waters in Maine, special places, where they can support themselves and thrive,” Wilson said.

But those waters number about 400, while Maine is dotted with thousands of rivers and ponds where, because of water quality, competition, or a lack of spawning beds, game fish cannot establish large populations.

In 1895, the state decided to give nature a little help and created the state’s first hatchery to stock ponds with state-raised fish.

“There has been a hatchery system for well over 100 years,” Wilson said. “It’s to provide a fishing opportunity that, otherwise, would not be there.”

At one time, the state had 44 separate hatcheries, producing fish for individual lakes. Since 1981, however, that’s been pared down to nine hatcheries: Casco, Dry Mills in Gray, Embden in North Anson, Enfield, Governor Hill in Augusta, Grand Lake Stream, New Gloucester, Palermo and Phillips.

“Our hatchery sites are just as important to the state of Maine as Baxter State Park,” Wilson said.

Hatcheries biologists capture wild fish to serve as “brood stock” or breeders, then hatch eggs and raise fish until they are large enough to survive in the wild.

Just like a farm

“A hatchery is just like a farm, we follow the life cycle of the fish,” Wilson said.

Last year, the hatcheries stocked Maine waters with 1.2 million fish, 90 percent of which were trout and the rest landlocked salmon. With a $2 million annual budget, however, Maine’s hatchery system pales in comparison to more populous states that often spend tens of millions to build up their fisheries, he said.

“We’re in competition with all the other New England states and Canada,” Wilson said. “This really is an investment.”

Fish are stocked in about 700 waters, giving local fishermen access to a nearby resource. But increasingly, anglers complain that Maine’s waters don’t include enough large fish to attract serious sportsmen. And if more hatchery fish were produced, anglers said, rules could be relaxed to allow for more fishing opportunity on stocked waters.

“We think of ourselves as a fishing state, but we’re not. We’re not even on the radar screen. Even Mainers are leaving in droves,” said George Smith, executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and a bond proponent. “If this doesn’t pass, we might as well just write the whole thing off and have everyone just go to Quebec [to go] fishing,” he said.

In the past 15 years, the average weight of hatchery fish has been creeping up, but bigger fish require more space, so hatcheries have not been able to meet the dual goal of increasing both quality and quantity.

“The bulk of our work is smaller fish, but this is what people want to see,” said Wilson, gesturing to a pool of foot-long splake [a hybrid trout] at Governor Hill. “These are the glamorous poster children – the pinups.”

’50s technology

The newest of Maine’s hatcheries was built in 1959, while some of the others predate World War II. Facilities have been maintained with funds raised through the sale of fishing licenses, but much of the equipment is outdated.

“Our technology is 1950s technology,” Wilson said. “We’re chipping away at things as best we can, but for the big stuff, we need the big money.”

Most Maine hatcheries use raceways, long, narrow concrete tanks filled with running water. The system is good at keeping the fish disease-free, but it requires gallons of water and takes up a lot of space. The raceways just can’t accommodate any more fish, biologists said.

“You can cause health problems with too many fish, just like too many people in a room,” Wilson said. “They just don’t like to be crowded – they get stressed, and it can stunt their growth.”

Seeking solutions

In 1999, the Legislature appropriated a half-million dollars to seek solutions and created a 13-member commission to plan for the future.

The money was used to hire Fishpro, an Illinois consulting firm, to analyze Maine’s hatcheries. Their preliminary report, completed last spring, estimated the cost of modernizing Maine’s entire hatchery system at between $20 million and $32 million.

Raceways would be scrapped in favor of new circular tanks, which can raise more and larger fish with greater efficiency. Filtering systems would be installed to guarantee the quality of the water near hatcheries.

Tom Johnson of Fishpro, called Maine’s problems “typical.”

“They’re not letting the system fall apart … it’s just getting older,” Johnson said. “These are the priority-one, critical things that need to happen to bring [the hatcheries] into the modern era.”

If the November bond is approved, the Embden hatchery would likely be the first to be modernized. Production at the facility could be quadrupled to 100,000 pounds of fish with a $6.3 million investment, according to the Fishpro report.

Additional funds from the bond would most likely be used to improve the quality of wastewater flowing from the hatcheries, Wilson said.

But where the hatcheries overhaul goes from there has not been determined, he said.

Fisheries biologists have recommended sufficient improvements to the infrastructure to increase the hatcheries’ effort from 260,000 pounds of fish each year to a half-million pounds over the next two decades.

The number of fish would increase only slightly, but their size would grow by about 25 percent, Wilson said.

The hatcheries commission, however, with much of its membership representing the fishing community, wants to raise the bar to more than 900,000 pounds of fish per year.

The final scope of the hatcheries plan will probably depend on how voters respond to this first bond, Wilson said.

“It’s time,” said Smith, who serves on the commission. “It’s not only an important part of our economy, it’s an important part of our heritage, and we’re not going to let it go.”