Managing the South Fork’s Chinook salmon program is literally a round-the-clock job that doesn’t slow down, even when the mercury drops. But while Chinook salmon might hog the spotlight as the McCall hatchery’s leading role, there are a few other species that round out the hatchery’s full cast of characters.

Supporting roles

In addition to the Chinook salmon program, McCall Fish Hatchery also manages a modest resident rainbow trout program for local anglers. 

“We get about 45 to 60,000 catchables from the Nampa Fish Hatchery that we’re able to hang on to in the summer, and we’re able to stock those in our local family fishing waters,” Mitchell said.

McCall and the surrounding area are also highly regarded for their alpine lake networks, which offer incredible opportunities for summer anglers to experience Idaho’s backcountry and see a lot of tight lines. Mitchell said that the McCall hatchery helps with that effort as well. 

“Each year, we’ll stock between 100 to 130 high-mountain lakes with Westslope cutthroat trout, rainbow trout, golden trout and Arctic grayling,” he said. 

If some of those species sound foreign or exotic, it’s because the greater McCall area and the Salmon River mountains offer some truly unique alpine fisheries, and the McCall hatchery is well placed to support those alpine fisheries. 

There’s nothing quite like hooking a 30-inch Chinook salmon along the Salmon River’s south fork, or watching a cutthroat trout slurp up a dry fly off the surface of a pristine alpine lake. 

But long before the golden rays of the sun rise and set on those fisheries in the tepid days of summer, the contrivance of the McCall Fish Hatchery, its staff and its aquatic residents keep on running, swimming, feeding, flowing — and, of course, snowplowing.