Mad River Fish Hatchery

There are no fish to see. CDFW ended hatchery operations here in June 2025 and released the remaining steelhead into the Mad River that spring, closing a program the agency had announced on May 2 was no longer viable. Buildings are being converted into offices, the workshop stays in use, and the raceways no longer rear anything.

What survives is the access. CDFW's closure release states that the property will continue to be open from sunrise to sunset so people can reach the river, and that the public's existing use of the premises will remain: parking, and getting to fishing, hiking, birding and swimming along the Mad. Restrooms are available. Picnicking and river viewing continue. It's still one of the easiest legal river-access points on the lower Mad, a mile or so southeast of Blue Lake at 1660 Hatchery Road.

Ignore the tour language. CDFW's own facility page still advertises 8am to 3pm hours and self-guided tours, and the City of Blue Lake's recreation page still describes the place as producing steelhead and salmon for regional streams. Both are out of date. Nobody is running tours.

Construction started in 1969 and finished in 1971, at $2.5 million, half of it reimbursed with federal anadromous fisheries funds, built to raise Chinook for commercial fisheries. For decades it reared salmon and steelhead from across northern California, plus trout stocked into Freshwater Lagoon, Ruth Lake and Fish Lake. A budget crisis closed it in 2004 after 34 years; local partnerships got it reopened in 2005.

Twenty years later the arithmetic ran out: roughly $1 million a year to operate, tens of millions more in needed repairs, low production and low returns. Local rainbow trout stocking in inland waters is unaffected.