He's got a family history not just in Jasper County but with fish hatcheries.
"Fish hatchery is extremely exciting to me because my uncle was the engineer of the original fish hatchery on Indian Creek," said William Martindale.
Martindale and many others showed up Friday afternoon at the new John D. Parker East Texas State Fish Hatchery open house.
The facility is still under construction and is across from Sam Rayburn Reservoir in Jasper County. Once complete it will include 64 production ponds. The project took over a decade to plan and construct and replaces
the aging Jasper Fish Hatchery that was constructed in 1932.
"I wanted to see the new facility. Even though I'm ancient I like to see new things," said Martindale.
Once fully up and running the hatchery is expected to produce four
to five million fingerlings every year to stock Texas rivers and lakes and will be home to six different species of fish including blue catfish, sunfish, and bass.
"It
just enhances the fishing in this area. Hopefully we'll produce a lot
of large mouth bass and stock them into the lakes that are in
this area. Sam Rayburn, Toledo bend, so it's good for the economy that
way," said Lee Hall with the Texas Parks and Wildlife.
Martindale says more fish means happier anglers.
"I think it's a great facility and I think they will probably be able to
produce an extravagant amount of fry that will help our lakes and
rivers," said Martindale.
