I am talking about lakes and stream sections that are getting stocked twice in the same month. I've noticed this on a number of ATW streams and a few lakes.

By all means, it makes sense to replace a depleted put-and-take population. However a lot of these are happening during March when no one is allowed to actually take the first batch.

Is there a hard and strong reason to stagger the batches? I can see them saving money by not feeding the trout for a few weeks, but I would imagine a portion of the trout would be naturally predated by the time opening day hits. I could also understand if these were simply different hatcheries, but I didn't see that to be the case either.

To me it just seems like it makes more sense to unload all of the allotted fish as close to opening day as makes financial sense. But perhaps I'm under-estimating the cost of 2 weeks of food for 2,000 trout!

I'm not familiar with this and don't think it's common. If it's happening, it probably has something to do with truck capacity or excess fish left over after another water was stocked(?).

Are you sure both stockings are on the same section of creek? I know some creeks get stocked in one area early and then in a second area later, both stockings being pre-eason.

Kev

It is probably extra fish or one stream wasn't really/able to hold the fish yet. Once on the truck they have to go somewhere.

This happened one of my first years fly fishing on Lycoming creek. It received 3 extra stockings that year because Lycoming and Muncy weren't "good" enough.

I heard this year they are trying to stock multiple areas at once to cut down on the trips the trucks are making. Maybe this has something to do with it? Stock a bunch of creeks at once and not having enough fish in one trip? Still making multiple trips but hitting more places in two days?

I have no idea if any of that is true or not

Well, for instance, Clark's Creek in Dauphin is getting stockings above the Dehart and by the Appalachian Trail on 3/3 and 4/12.

Children's Lake in Cumberland County is getting stocked 3/22 and 4/7.

There were a few others I noticed, but looking back it's less common than I thought.

Goro,
Okay - now that you posted the dates I see the confusion. These aren't "double stockings." They're referred to as "pre-season" and "in-season" and are standard for almost all Approved Trout Waters. You'll note that the second dates are after trout season has started so those second dates are the "in-season" stocking. The in-season stockings generally are to replace fish caught in the first few days of the season.

I thought the season started April 14?

EDIT: I think my confusion is about the Regional Opening day. I thought those counties opened later, but apparently they are part of the March 31 opening!

It starts this Saturday, March 31st across the southeast counties. This includes Cumberland County and (I think) Dauphin County.