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          The roots of the Department’s Fisheries Division are entangled in a tale of political treachery and public protest that dates back to 1913.  A stormy time only a few years after statehood, when many agencies and individuals were jockeying for power in the governmental pecking order.

          Although Oklahoma Territorial lawmakers had passed the first game regulations in 1895, it wasn’t until 1909 that hunting licenses were established and a fee set at $1.25.  Four years later the state legislature closed down the Department and transferred all hunting license funds, which totaled $94,000, to the state capitol-building fund.

          An outcry followed.  Angry mobs of hunters who felt their trust had been violated, organized an effective protest against the action.  Two years later the Department reopened with an appropriation from the legislature, and a stipulation that the money be used for a fish hatchery to be built near Medicine Park.  In effect, this act was the state’s first effort in fisheries management.

          Incidentally, the legislature retuned the $94,000 to the Department in 1917.  In 1925, the influential Isaak Walton League helped the young agency shape recommendations for the state’s first fishing licenses, which, like hunting licenses, cost $1.25.  Funds from these licenses were used mainly for producing fish at Medicine Park and other, newer hatcheries for the next 20 years.

        Around 1945, fisheries management philosophies began to change.  In 1947, Outdoor Oklahoma published an editorial by then - chief of fisheries, A.D. Aldrich.  “Our methods need revamping,” he wrote.  “There has been too much guesswork in our fish distribution activities.”  Aldrich identified a desperate need for discovering, applying and making practical use of current technical information about the state’s fish species.

          The Oklahoma Fisheries Research Laboratory was established that year on the University of Oklahoma campus.  Trained biologists were added to the lab staff and in four field regions around the state.  Subsequent experiments uncovered methods of determining the ages and growth rates of fish – a major milestone in Aldrich’s hopes for the future.  Old ideas about the dynamics of specific fish populations were proven false.  New strategies for improving angling began taking shape.

           By 1958, sport fish such as bass were being protected through fishing regulations based on solid research data.  Length limits and creel limits were no longer established randomly by the legislature.  The new regulations were more effective at protecting and enhancing the resources.  And Oklahoma, which once closed fishing season when bass were thought to be spawning, was suddenly becoming one of the nation’s premier year-round fishing areas.

          Fisheries management flourished in the following years, with increasing knowledge and well planned projects adding to the quality of the state’s aquatic resources.  Fish collection and sampling techniques were modernized.  Data analysis became more sophisticated.   New species were introduced.  Regulations were fine tuned to produce specific results.  And the Department added a number of intensively managed and highly productive small lakes to the state’s array of places to go fishing.

          By 1945, Oklahoma had six hatcheries that produced bass, crappie, bullheads, channel catfish, several varieties of sunfish and even tadpoles for state waters.  Besides the Medicine Park Hatchery, other facilities were located at Holdenville, Byron, Durant, Tahlequah and Heavener.  Total fish production that year was 3.7 million fish.  However, the role of Oklahoma’s hatcheries was destined to change.  Fisheries management philosophies swayed away from the “put and take” theories of the early years.  A new “sustained yield” approach would rely on better research and effective regulations to provide lakes with self-renewing populations of native fish.