Too crowded on opening day? Not on these creeks and lakes.

[Mike]

Just a heads-up. Past discussions here have focused on PFBC angler use counts, especially low counts, and the threat or actions taken to remove low use waters from the stocking program. A new tact this spring is to announce the low use waters and try to get more anglers to give these waters a try. Some are stocked for opening day; a few are stocked in season only. Keep an eye out, as the list will soon be published if it has not been already. I expect to see it in the Pa Angler and Boater magazine And I would not be surprised to see it appear elsewhere. So, if you are bored with the usual opening day articles in your local rag, you may want to pay a little more attention this year for such info that may be buried in those articles.

SE Pa waters involved are only ones that are stocked in season only...Lakeside Quarry in Myerstown, Lebanon Co, and the 1 mi. Ltl Schuylkill River section in Port Clinton, near Cabela's.

 

[CRB]

TX Mike good info

 

[BrooksAndHooks]

Cool. I like fishing new streams that are stocked, sometimes you end up finding cool water or wild trout where you would least expect, or at least puts you on water near new water. I don't fish stocked trout a lot but sometimes take friends or family out and it never hurts to know more places to catch fish!

 

[Char_Master]

That's pretty awesome, I can't even explain how crowded my favorite spot is when I fish my local creek on opening day. I'm the only one who fishes it year round and once June rolls around, those 50 people who were on it opening day are all gone. I'd love to see a breakdown of that all the licenses sold, how many people only chuck powerbait on opening day and go home with 5 pellet heads on a yellow rope for their freezer that'll be there until the next year when they throw them out because they forgot about them. Maybe I'm just being to pessimistic LOL.

Regardless, as crowds annoy me to no end, I'll be spending this year's opening day fishing for Trout on my boat. Lake Erie is great in mid April. I can head east from port and fish for Lake Trout, or I can fish shallow in PIB and around the peninsula for Steelhead, Browns, and Northern Pike. The nice thing about that time of year is that most of the fish are shallow enough that I can either troll for them with spoons and plugs, or pitch streamers on intermediate lines which is fun as heck when the fish cooperate! But enough of me going on a tangent haha.

 

[Mike]

The list is out and available on the PFBCWeb site in this month's Pa Angler and Boater Magazine in the article on changes for 2016. Scroll down to the table and map. Make sure you pay attention to the coding that indicates whether the water body is stocked preseason or just inseason.

 

[mikesl]

Relevant Article on PFBC site

 

[henrydavid]

Thank you Mike, I see Double Run in Sullivan County is off the stocking list, I wonder what took them so long, glad the natives survived. Many times I would catch a stockie and just a short ways up stream catch a beautiful native brookie, now the brookies have it all to themselves.

 

[duckfoot]

henrydavid wrote:
Thank you Mike, I see Double Run in Sullivan County is off the stocking list, I wonder what took them so long, glad the natives survived. Many times I would catch a stockie and just a short ways up stream catch a beautiful native brookie, now the brookies have it all to themselves.

Double Run was a place for them to put fish for the Jersey folk who camp at Worlds End in the spring.

I wouldn't be surprised if the same amount of fisherman traffic puts a severe hurting on the native population in two years.

 

[troutbert]

henrydavid wrote:
Thank you Mike, I see Double Run in Sullivan County is off the stocking list.

Kudos to the PFBC for taking this brookie stream off the stocking list.

They took a different brookie stream, in NC PA, off the stocking list last year.

Most of the PFBC biologists/managers want to do the right thing regarding ending stocking over native brookies.

It's politically difficult. They need all the support we can offer on this.