- 3957 Mountain Road, Strasburg, VA 22657
- Hours: Monday–Friday, 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM
- Phone: 540-635-5350
- Map & Directions
- Hatchery Manager: Wayne Pence
The Fish
After renovations completed in 2023, Front Royal Fish Cultural Station’s state-of-the-art technology allows the facility to hatch and raise smallmouth bass, a species known for their difficulty to raise in a hatchery. In 2024, hatchery staff raised 30,000 smallmouth fingerlings from eight nests. In 2025, they harvested fry from more than 60 nests and were able to produce and stock 286,000 smallmouth bass in the Shenandoah and James river systems, large impoundments such as Philpott and South Holston lakes, and small impoundments like Lake Frederick and Lake Laura.
In recent years, the hatchery has also focused on producing walleye and muskie fingerlings. The hatchery also serves as a distribution point for trout, catfish, and other species to the waters of northern and northwestern Virginia.
Background
Front Royal Fish Hatchery was built beginning in 1931 as a Civil Conservation Corps project under Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration. The facility’s first fish production was in 1933, when smallmouth bass and other species were hatched and reared for stocking in public waters of Virginia. The water supply for the hatchery comes from Passage Creek.
In 2020, the hatchery closed for extensive renovations, which included two new hatchery buildings with sophisticated, temperature-controlled hatching equipment, a state-of-the-art filtration system at the intake from Passage Creek, and the lining of four ponds. The improvements allow for more efficient and effective fish hatching, raising, and collecting. A ribbon-cutting ceremony in May 2023 marked the re-opening of the facility.
Public Access
Local attractions include put-and-take trout fishing and a stretch of delayed harvest fishing by the hatchery, smallmouth fishing on the Shenandoah River, Skyline Drive, the George Washington National Forest, numerous trails including the Appalachian Trail, canoeing and tubing livery services, Civil War battlefields and museums, CCC Camp Roosevelt, antique shops, and bed and breakfasts.