Newly hatched hybrids are placed in troughs, remaining there until they develop swim bladders and begin feeding. "As soon as that is confirmed and we have a rearing pond ready to go, -- it has an adequate food supply and good water quality -- then we can transfer those fish," Nichols resumed. "Depending on the number of fry in a particular batch and how the pond looks, we stock 75,000 to 200,000 fry per acre."

In addition, hybrid fry from Marion are also sent to the hatcheries at Carbon Hill and Eastaboga. All the hatcheries intensely manage their earthen rearing ponds. They infuse them with parent zoöplankton (microscopic crustaceans that the hybrid fry consume), introduce large doses of organic and inorganic fertilizers and, finally, aerate (because of the heavy nutrient load).

"The ponds are pushed hard to maximize food production," Nichols remarked. "These fish are voracious. Seven-day old fish that just started eating feed fast and furious. We must crank out a lot of food for the fish to grow and do well.

"Our strategy is to produce a larger, more robust fingerling, but not to produce as many of them. Our goal is to raise a solid 1- to 1 1/2-inch fingerling for stocking."

When the fingerlings have emptied the ponds of food -- this occurs in May on into early June -- they're harvested and stocked in our lakes and rivers. Stocking rates have changed over the years as our biologists have learned to produce fingerlings with higher survival rates -- and to be more selective about the locations in which to stock hybrids. For example: Alabama no longer stocks the Tennessee River, as fish released upstream and downstream in Tennessee migrate across the state line, providing us with excellent fishing.

On average, stocking rates have declined from 10 to five fish per acre, but, Nichols noted, numbers are highly variable, depending on the river or reservoir and the sampling conducted by biologists in their respective districts. "When our districts sample stripes or hybrids," he explained, "they collect the otoliths from the fish and take its length and weight. The otoliths gives the age of the fish, so they can actually look at the history of the fish to see how well it has grown throughout its life. From that, we can adjust our stocking rates."

Using the DCNR's current stocking strategy of releasing high-quality hybrids in selected fisheries, they planted nearly 2,260,000 hybrids in the last four years.

"Looking at our combined totals," Nichols stated, "we stock fewer fish now, but we are more efficient with those stockings. We are getting better fisheries from those lower stocking numbers than we did in the '80s, when we stocked larger numbers of fish."