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1st Multiple c

John D. Simmons, Charlotte Observer

10/30/01: Shane Kornberg (CQ, holding fish), 25, massages the belly of a male brook trout to help it expel milt during an October morning spawning session at the Armstrong State Fish Hatchery near Marion, NC. Kyle Briggs (CQ), 31, hatchery superintendent and his team of fish technicians, dressed in neoprene chest waders and wool gloves for warmth, spawned 115 pairs of brook trout. The hatchery is a source for brook and brown trout where they keep brood trout for spawning. Besides raising these trout from eggs and milt until they are big enough to stock in North Carolina streams. Armstrong, which also raises rainbow trout but buys the plentiful rainbow eggs, stocks approximately 245,000 trout in the streams of 10 North Carolina counties each year. "96% of what (the fish) we stock are 10 inches long. The other 4% are at least 14 inches when we put them in the creeks," Briggs said. It takes about one year of growth for the trout to reach 10 inches in length. Between the Armstrong hatchery and the Pisgah Hatchery, in Brevard NC, more than 713,000 trout are stocked in approximatley 1,000 of steams. (JOHN D. SIMMONS_STAFF)