Fish farming - Angling Club of Tolmin

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Fish Farm Tolminka

From the early sixties on fry from our sectors have been used for artificial breeding, especially the fry of the marble trout. Breeding took place in Ilirska Bistrica, later in Solkan and partially in Kobarid.

In 1989 we started artificially breeding trout in our own hatchery in Modrej pri Vodivčku. Since 1995 we have been breeding fish in the fish farm Tolminka in Tolmin. In 1996 we succeeded in stripping the eggs of the pure marble trout from our own school of breeding marble trout.

Marble trout's eggs

From the very start we have been breeding the marble trout and in 1994 we switched to breeding only the marble trout.

In 1996 we tried to breed grayling as well and succeeded. Since then we have been regularly raising year-old juvenile grayling.

The Modrej Hatchery

Hatchery Modrej

The hatchery gets its water from the spring Zapolje pri Vodivčku, which is drinking quality water with a stable temperature of 10 to 11°C. The hatchery uses up 7 l/s.

In the hatchery there are 64m² of breeding surfaces for half-year juveniles and 77m² for raising and storing marble trout for breeding and year-old juveniles.

Marble trout's fry

The hatcheries capacities currently allow hatching up to 500,000 fry and 200,000 half-year juvenile marble trout yearly, as well as 30,000 one-year grayling juveniles. Yearly we also breed as many trout juveniles and we’ve bred up to 25,000 grayling juveniles in a year.

Approximately half of the juvenile trout are introduced into breeding streams, while the other half is kept for one-year breeding on the Tolminka and partially at the Hatchery.

Fish Farm Tolminka

The work at fish farm

It stands by the river Tolminka in Tolmin itself. Together with the construction of the fish farm the small hydro-plant SENG Nova Gorica was also repaired. Both objects function together, the water from the Tolminka is used first for fish farming and then to produce electricity.

The Tolminka is a torrential river, which is why we have built a number of filtration stations to clear leaves and other debris from the water used in the fish farm.

Three years old juvenile from fish farm

The temperature of the Tolminka varies from 5 to 13°C. At normal operational capacity 150 l/s of water run through the fish farm. The water is cleaned in our own treatment plant.

The fish farm has a total of 19 pools (230m²) for raising year-old trout and two canals 80m long and 3.5m to 4m wide for raising marble trout for breeding. We have sufficient capacity to breed 100,000 year-old trout, and in the breeding canals we have room for 500 adult marble trout under conditions which are very similar to those found in the wild.

The technology needed to breed marble trout is different from that used to breed other species of trout because of the marble trout’s special requirements. This is also the reason for the unusual appearance of the fish farm, as the pools and canals are covered.