Mason Valley Fish Hatchery - Yerington

The same day that we attended the Carson Valley Days Parade, and visited Ft. Churchill State Park, we did a little wandering around just for the fun of seeing some new country we'd never visited before. We found ourselves driving past the Mason Valley Wildlife Management Area, which might not have drawn us off the main road, but then we saw the sign for the Mason Valley Fish Hatchery. Most people wouldn't find that to be a big draw, but our family lived at a fish hatchery for several years for my husband's job and now we can't drive past one without stopping in. We're nerds, I know. 

We pulled up to the main office at the hatchery and popped inside to see what there was to offer. There were clean restrooms and a drinking fountain, which were top priority after being in the car for a while. There were displays about native and invasive wildlife species in the area, complete with stuffed specimens of some of the animals. There was also a guest book to sign, and little booklets outlining what there is to see at the hatchery.
After a quick stop there we headed into the hatchery building to see the baby fish. The building smells about like you'd expect a building filled with hundreds of thousands of fish to smell, but it's not too terrible. The kids loved getting to look at all the tiny fish! There were even foot stools scattered about so that the littlest kids could see into the tanks.

 The fish are very delicate at this early stage of life, so if you visit this hatchery (or any other), keep your hands out of the water. Introducing germs to just one run could potentially kill 20-30 THOUSAND fish in just one of the fish runs.

 After exploring the hatchery building we made the climb up to the main fish runs. This is not stroller/handicap accessible at all (Unless I missed something. Maybe you could come up from the bottom of the runs?) and requires climbing some stairs.

 

We enjoy the fish runs because the fish are larger and more active than the tiny ones in the hatchery. They also come right to the surface in hopes that you're there to feed them so you get a pretty good look at them (but don't actually feed them anything!). The runs were each labelled with the type of fish inside, and it was fun to me to see such a variety. The hatchery we lived at only raised one type of fish.

 All in all, this was an interesting stop, but probably not a destination in and of itself. If you love to fish though, you could plan on spending a day or two at the fishing ponds in the surrounding management area and probably have a lot of fun!

Essential Details:
Mason Valley Fish Hatchery
Mason Valley Wildlife Management Area
Website
Public restrooms and drinking water available