Am I correct in believing that it's legal to fish upstream from the most upstream stocking point in these streams?

No, not for most streams anyway. Only the ones that have their ATW sections specifically delineated on the ATW regs listing can be fished legally in upstream sections.

If the whole stream is listed as ATW, then the whole stream (in that county) is closed to fishing, even the parts that aren't stocked. This unfortunately is the way that most of them are listed...if you're looking at the PFBC site online it's the ATW regs page that counts, not the stocking list.

Thanks Swattie. I checked the regs and saw something about stocked areas and downstream. Must have read it wrong.

Recent discussion of similar topic

Regs for Extended Season on ATW mention downstream; however, upstream is not mentioned anywhere for regular or extended season. Regulations are actually ambiguous, and where's the ambiguity, the local WCO may have the final say in clearing up the murkiness

As an example (as I understand it), if a stream flows from County A to County B and into County C, but only County B has a section that is ATW and is stocked, then according to hearsay from somone at the PFBC (referenced in the other thread), the stream in County C (downstream) is fishable, as would presumably be County A (upstream). PA Regulations don't spell out boundaries of ATW per se; your annual license manual lists ATW by County, so one has to assume the boundaries are by counties. To further complicate things, there are usually multiple stream sections per stream in each county, not all of which get stocked. And given the way some streams are stocked, there may be only one or two stocking points in the whole section.

Given that there's two weeks until Opening Day, I'd find a special reg water, or a stream that is not ATW and fish it.

Yeah, I essentially agree with Jack's interpretation from the other thread. I'd agree it's ambiguous in the sense that the regs don't specifically say upstream of stocked sections within a county (when the whole stream in that county is listed as ATW) is closed to fishing. That said, I think the regs are still fairly clear that it's their intent for the whole stream within the county to be closed in that case. The reg reads "These waters are closed to all fishing (including taking of minnows) from March 1 to 8 a.m. on the opening day of the trout season." If the entire stream is listed within the county, I would interpret this to mean the whole stream within the county is closed, regardless of where it's stocked. If the ATW sections within the county are specifically delineated on the ATW listing, then anything above or below those parameters (again, within the county) is open.

In the cases of streams that cross county lines, because ATW is listed and delineated by county, I would think a reasonable interpretation of that would be that if the PFBC wanted the stream regulated as ATW in the next county (upstream or downstream) they would list it as such under that county as well. Therefore if the upstream section is in a different county where the stream is not listed as ATW, I think that would be fair game down to the county line, and I'd be fairly comfortable in fishing it this time of year.

I think the point in noting that only ATW's and all sections downstream are open to harvest during the extended season is to protect any naturally reproducing trout during the spawn - most of which happens in waters upstream of ATW's in most cases.

Any way you slice it, as Salmonoid pointed out, it's enough to make me not comfortable (except in the one example above) in fishing them this time of year. I had one in this exact same scenario (entire stream listed as ATW within a county, but only stocked in downstream sections) on my radar for this Spring. Except for its extreme headwaters that I probably couldn't even hike to, this stream is entirely confined within one county (the one where it's listed as an ATW). The section I want to fish is several miles above the uppermost stocking limit on the PFBC stocking page...it'll be waiting until after opening day now though. Bottom line, if you're not sure, fish somewhere else until opening day, or risk the potential violation if confronted by a WCO.