Hatchery managers also experimented to find better techniques to feed fish. Flour and other finely ground materials were added to the ground meats. This created a better nutritional mix. Eventually, managers at Utah's Glenwood State Fish Hatchery helped develop a completely dry food, which was easier to manage, store and feed to the fish. Today, the Whiterocks hatchery buys fish food from commercial companies that use some of the techniques and information originally developed in Utah's state fish hatchery system.

Stocking techniques also improved over time, with the equipment the hatchery staff used progressing from 10-gallon cans to trucks carrying huge tanks. The Whiterocks hatchery currently uses a truck with a single 400-gallon tank, but it also ships fish out on a DWR truck equipped with four 400-gallon tanks.

The horses also have been replaced. In July, August and sometimes into September, hatchery personnel get up before dawn and load their trucks with small fingerlings. These fish trucks aren't heading to a lake or reservoir, though:They're going to meet a DWR airplane equipped with a special tank.

Measured numbers of fingerlings and a limited amount of water are placed into one of several small compartments in the tank. The fingerlings and water are then flown to a high mountain lake or reservoir. Once the pilot arrives at the body of water, he lines up his plane, dives as close as safety allows and releases one or more compartments of fingerlings. Due to the relative shapes of water droplets and fingerlings, the water hits the surface first, creating splashes and waves that allow the fish to enter the water safely.

Managers at the Whiterocks hatchery continued to be innovative in other ways, including experimenting with a water column, which helps provide oxygen while reducing the loss of eggs to fungus and other diseases. The hatchery's managers were often called upon to hatch and grow fish that had been difficult to raise in a hatchery situation.

However, while innovative methods for handling and raising eggs, fry and fingerlings helped improve production at the hatchery for almost 80 years, time had the final say. Concrete crumbled, wood rotted and pipes rusted, and the once-modern hatchery needed to be replaced with a new, state-of-the-art facility.