Skip to main content
idfg-badge

Idaho Fish and Game

Fish Hatchery
Hayspur
Before you go

The Hayspur State Fish Hatchery is located on Loving Creek in Blaine County, about 30 miles south of Sun Valley.

To visit the hatchery travel north on State Highway 75 from Twin Falls. When you reach the intersection with U.S. Highway 20 turn right or go east. Go east on U.S. Highway 20 for about 7 miles and turn left, north, into the entrance of Hayspur Hatchery. Travel up the road three-fourths of a mile to the hatchery.

Hayspur Hatchery was the first Idaho hatchery and was built in 1907. Egg collection from broodstock dates back to 1910. Hatchery work and stocking occurred in the early 1920s.

Related Location

71 Hayspur Lane
Bellevue, ID 83313
United States

Location Facts

Fish culture facilities include an incubation building with 23 vertical eight-tray Heath type incubator stacks for trout eggs, a hatchery building with 20 early rearing vats, 15 covered 24-foot circular ponds, four small raceways, and six large production raceways. Other buildings include a fish spawning equipment storage building, two generator buildings, three residences for permanent employees, an office building, shop, a three-bay garage, a barn, and a dormitory for temporary employees. Water sources include a covered spring that supplies 5.5 cubic feet per second (cfs) and three pumped artesian wells, producing 2.5 cfs at 52 degrees (11.6 C). The spring and well water are both considered Specific Pathogen Free water supplies and are disease free.

Location Things to Know

Hayspur Hatchery is a license-funded resident salmonid broodstock facility. During the summer it distributes catchable rainbow to area waters and during the fall, winter, and spring it collects fish eggs from about 4,500 female rainbow trout. The eggs are held until the egg develops an eye spot (eyed-egg) and are then enumerated and shipped to other state of Idaho facilities for final rearing and the production of fingerlings or catchables for state waters. Hayspur produces and ships about 8 million eyed-eggs annually. All Hayspur rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) are maintained on station with several brood years of various ages in production. Eggs are collected from mature age 2, age 3, and age 4 adults. All rainbow trout eggs produced, with very few exceptions, are pressure shocked and made sterile to protect native fish in state waters that are stocked with the Hayspur stock.

Access Information

Hatchery personnel maintain an on-site public campground, a Family Fishing Water (Gavers Lagoon), and a trophy stream fishery. Many people visit, camp, and fish Gavers Lagoon, Butte Creek, Loving Creek, or Silver Creek (across the highway). Gavers Lagoon is a great place for physically challenged individuals and children to fish for trout. Gavers Lagoon is stocked regularly from May through September with rainbow trout and has a six-fish limit with no gear restrictions.