McNenny State Hatchery officials are getting started on the last batch of fish they will stock in the place of the newly renovated Cleghorn Springs Fish Hatchery.

Keith Wintersteen, the assistant superintendent at McNenny, said McNenny crews will stock waters normally stocked by Cleghorn up until about mid-June.

"Catchable-size" rainbow trout out of Cleghorn will be ready for stocking by next fall, which means McNenny will no longer have double duty.

"Come September 1st, we will be back to stocking the Northern third of the Black Hills and Cleghorn will pick up the rest," Wintersteen said.

When it came time to quit rearing fish at Cleghorn in 2005 in order to do the renovations, hatchery workers were forced to cut stocking in the Black Hills by about 40 percent, and McNenny was forced to pick up the slack.

The hatchery reopened this past January after a 16-month, $6.5-million renovation project that included new circular rearing tanks, a new water pumping distribution system and other improvements.

But the reconstruction happened to coincide with a time of drought, which made the difference in fish less noticeable because fewer waters could be stocked, according to Cleghorn manager Will Sayler.

"The impact of the whole decrease in numbers was mitigated by the fact that we were in extreme low water years," he said.

He said he expects the hatchery to be at the production levels from 2005 by around January of 2009. The stocking levels will begin to go up when fish are stocked from Cleghorn this fall.

Sayler said waters will be stocked in much the same way that they were in 2005, with careful attention being paid to which ones are ideal for fish.

"I think we're going to focus on the same types of waters that we did pre-construction," he said. "We always remain flexible concerning water levels in streams and higher temperatures in the small lakes."

State Game, Fish & Parks Department biologist Gene Galinat said the department took careful steps on how much to decrease the stocking in each lake when the construction project came about.

He said waters that are "very dependent on stocking," such as Legion Lake, Horse Thief Lake and Colbrook Reservoir, were only cut by 20 percent.

Those bodies of water would have very little fishing opportunities without stocking, Galinat said, which is why they weren't cut as much as other bodies of water.

Meanwhile the area reservoirs, such as Pactola, Sheridan Lake and Deerfield Lake, were cut 30 percent.

The largest cuts were done at fisheries that biologists had concerns about survival rates, to include farm ponds and low water areas. Galinat said 70 percent cuts were done at Allen Dam in Bennett County, Elk Creek, Rapid Creek and Custer Municipal Pond.

Galinat said all of the waters will be brought back up to what they were in 2005 once those fish producing capabilities are once again realized.

Hans Stephenson, an avid trout fisherman and owner of Dakota Angler and Outfitter in Rapid City, said he didn't notice a huge decrease in fishing opportunities while the stocking numbers were down.

But Stephenson also goes after mostly wild fish. He said the drought has been his biggest problem.

Stephenson said some of the areas he fishes have had increased pressure because of fewer fish available at the area of Pactola near Silver City.

"I'd be happy if some of the stocking does increase some places like Silver City and some other stream spots to try to decrease the pressure on some of the places that have been fished more," he said.

Wintersteen said that it has been a challenge for McNenny workers to keep up with the pace of stocking all the fish instead of splitting the duties with another hatchery.

But it's been an interesting experience, he said.

"It has been good for us, from the standpoint that it's given a lot of the staff a chance to see the waters Cleghorn normally stocks and get more familiar with the Black Hills," he said.

Contact Ryan Woodard at 394-8412 or ryan.woodard@rapidcityjournal.com