Shepherd of the Hills Fish Hatchery & Table Rock Dam – Branson, Missouri

DATE VISITED:  05/30/2015

SITE:  Shepherd of the Hills Fish Hatchery & Table Rock Dam

LOCATION:  483 Hatchery Rd, Branson, Taney Co., Missouri

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS: 

Our morning started out so cool. Imagine lying in bed and you look out the window and see a deer grazing just off your balcony. Dirk said this is the first time he’s ever seen a deer there, but then he also told me that he never looked or went out back before I got here.

 The next day I see a deer across the street from the front of the apartment complex. I send Dirk a text telling him. Deadpan, he asks me if it’s the same one. He always catches me...makes me pause and think...HUH?

The drive to the hatchery is beautiful…so much green. There I go again being a California tourist. I had to pull to side and take some pictures of the area from above. 

The hatchery is free and it was pretty crowded. When we arrived at the hatchery’s visitor center, one of the rangers asked where we were from. When I said Sacramento, he said…”you’ve come 2,000 miles to see your own fish”. Apparently they get their “seed” fish from California. 

We watched a video that explained the hatchery operations and the life cycle of the trout raised here.

There’s this huge fish tank before you head outside and it has some really big trout in it. I recognized the rainbows and browns…but there was a couple of strange blue ones…never did find out what those were.

 Construction of the hatchery started in 1957 and started producing trout in 1958 with the completion of Table Rock Dam. The hatchery is maintained by the Missouri Dept. of Conservation.

This is the largest trout producing hatchery in Missouri and produces between 350,000 to 400,000 pounds of rainbow and brown trout each year. About 1.2 million trout.

Fish are raised in the hatchery for 18 months and will be about 11” long at release. 80% of those go into Lake Taneycomo, while the rest go into other Missouri trout management areas.

Dirk was explaining to me that there are different fish above and below Table Rock Dam. The waters above the dam vary in temperature. The water released from the dam is pulled from the bottom and is much colder. Trout do well in the colder waters of Lake Taneycomo.

The fish above Table Rock Dam are warmer water species, such as bass and catfish.

We watched the staff feed the fish and these things act like piranha and they get fed more than once a day.

After we left the hatchery, we drove just a bit closer to the dam. We’ve had lots of rain so all the gates were open and you could hear the water coming through. An awesome force!