July 2011
Tom O'Shea has now moved the salmon fry  into the bigger tanks and the automatic feeders installed. The fry are doing well on the new regime as food levels can now be more accurately controlled. We have a very healthy stock of fry which are growing well!

April 1st 2011
There is good news from the hatchery this week!
All of our salmon eggs have hatched and there is now a good number of healthy alevins wriggling about in the trays! In a few weeks they will have absorbed their egg sacks (see photos!) and will then be gradually introduced to solid food.



After a number of years laying idle the hatchery which is located on the River Cummeragh was re opened in October 2002.

The plant was initially used to stock out juvenile sea trout into feeder streams in the catchment. It is currently used to rear summer salmon fingerling to supplement the decline in existing stocks.

Every winter salmon broodstock are taken from the Cummeragh catchment. The eggs are striped from the females and fertilised with milt of male fish. The fertilised eggs are placed in trays until they hatch out into alevin's. Once the attached yolk sac of the alvein's has been absorbed the fry are transferred into larger tanks and grown on to summer fingerling. The juvenile salmon are released back into the Cummeragh catchment at different locations following this process.

The hatchery also has an underwater photographic facility. Live images from the river are screened through special underwater cameras. Migrating fish and sea trout spawning can be monitored through the use of this facility. Visitors are welcome to come and watch this feature by appointment with the Manager.

The Fishery maintains a Vaki Fish Counter adjacent to the hatchery. The counter is located on the outflow of Derriana. This allows surveillance of fish numbers entering and exiting Lough Derriana throughout the year.

The fry in their new tanks-the tiny specs are the automatically fed food particles



The new automatic fry feeders