By Vance Polton Although by now a good percentage of the hatchery staff are sick of looking at hatching jars full of fish eggs, I decided we ought to spend some time looking at...

By Vance Polton Today I thought we would visit the Backbone Trout hatchery but instead of going straight back to the past as we usually do, we would first spend a little time in the present...

By Vance Polton After just getting back from the Walleye spawning operations at Rathbun I like to kick back and relax and watch a little TV.  Now here at Wayback Wednesday, we aren’t in the age of streaming services and...

By Vance Polton As it’s getting close to the start of the walleye spawning operations I thought we should spend some time this morning with Fay Fronk who worked at the Spirit Lake Fish Hatchery...

By Vance Polton You’ve all probably seen a photo of it or at least heard about Carl’s headstone.  The “Death: Overwork at Fish Hatchery” tombstone. But what do you know about the man whose...

By Vance Polton Since the Oscars were just last weekend I thought it was appropriate to talk about “Iowa Fisheries on Film”.  As early as 1915 and probably even a little earlier than that...

By Vance Polton Today’s Jaunt back through time really isn’t that far back. Heck, it’s just back around the corner. Of course it was back in the last century if you want to look at it that way. But let’s not. We’re headed back to...

By Vance Polton Yeah, You read that right. Back in 2018 I came across the following newspaper article in the March 23, 1939 edition of the Pella Chronicle, page 6: And so the hunt was...

By Vance Polton Well, it’s Wednesday and it’s time to hit the road again. We’ll head back in time to around 1916 and head east over to the town of Fairport in Muscatine county to visit the Fairport...