Inseason stockings-good use or poor use- depends on the creek

[Mike]

In another thread Dave W brought up the topic of inseason stocking, I think with some reference to the potential waste of fish with late inseason stockings due to angler use rapidly declining after April on his local waters. By angler use I mean angler trips to a given stream, regardless of whether the trout caught are harvested. Additionally, the word “late” in late inseason stockings is subjective, but used to be thought of as those occurring after about May 20 because use was declining, water temps were warming, flows were declining, and the spring stocking season was headed for its cir end of May termination.

Based on comments over the past two decades from some WCO’s or their supervisors in SE Pa anyway, light angler turnout and “late inseason” for some streams appeared to be as early as May 10. They reported low angler turnout on stocking dates, which then suggested possible low turnout overall/low angling pressure. Situations of low angler turnout, which were generally stream dependent, then raised questions of over-stocking and whether the fish could be better utilized elsewhere.

When angler use is typically low or light in response to inseason stockings for a given stream or stream section, there are any number of things that can be done by fisheries managers, including maintaining the status quo while increasing promotion of the fishery. Other options: add instructions to stock the stream section early in the inseason period, eliminate the inseason stocking, reduce the frequency of inseason stockings if a section receives more than one inseason stocking, or reduce the stocking rate ( number of trout stocked per acre).

The ideal way to determine angler use is through systematic angler counts in stocked trout sections, which are usually done on an annual basis a varying select group of waters on Opening Day, but not usually done inseason due to other commitments (except in fall and sometimes in situations like those mentioned above).

 

[JeffK]

Some interesting points. I like fishing late May, early June since the streams are full of hungry fish. Many stocked streams I frequent sometimes fish well until July 4.

Often times as the water gets lower and clearer and the fish more fished over fly fishing comes into its own and chucking hardware and drowning nightcrawlers becomes less effective. That keeps many anglers away. I was prompted to learn fly fishing because by late May the fly anglers were catching all the fish.

I stock in NJ and one thing that keeps the late season stocking high is that the hatchery needs to clear the raceways for the next years production. The hatchery always raises a few more fish than targeted to account for any unexpected losses and culls fish at certain times. In most years there aren't any crises and by the last stocking there are more fish than targeted. They need to be cleared out to clean the raceways.

Aren't more fish put in for opening Day now?

 

[tomgamber]

If people will fish for them and harvest them, why not. I believe anyone who wants to harvest trout would have only one other alternative and that would be to harvest wild fish.

 

[larkmark]

What real difference does it make where and when and how many people fish? The PAFBC has a budget to stock trout. And people buy licenses to fish for them. I say stock them as usual and leave it at that.
The definition of a "wasted fish"as one that is not caught or not eaten seems strange. So if three guys fish a stream every day for a month and catch and release 10 fish per day each That is about 900 interactions....OR 900 people fish one day and catch and keep all of the fish.... Which is better?

 

[Mike]

The second scenario reveals that 900 trout were stocked in the example stream section. In keeping with the theme of angler use and not angler harvest established in the opening paragraph, the 900 anglers each fishing once would represent excellent angler use, specifically one trip per stocked trout. On the other hand three anglers fishing each day for a 30 day month would only represent 90 trips for 900 stocked trout or 0.1 trips per trout. That would be poor angler use and in my view should result in modifications to the management on that stream.

 

[larkmark]

If I understand you correctly then a stream that is heavily fished by large numbers of anglers who actually only catch a few fish would be more likely to receive continued stocking while another stream where fewer anglers enjoy a much more quality experience would then be likely to have numbers of fish reduced? And the solution to the second scenario would be to promote the stream in order to get more people there?

 

[silverfox]

Yeah, that logic doesn't compute. If 900 anglers fish a stream and catch 1 fish each, the following year I'd bet little to none of those anglers would return to that stream. I read this all the time in comments on social media. Too many people and not enough fish.

Frankly, that's the problem with put-n-take in a state with so many streams. An accessible section of stream can only hold so many fish. Load it up with anglers and they'll deplete the fish pretty quickly. Then all the other people who show up and don't catch fish get pissed and claim the state doesn't stock enough.

So your trips per trout ratio could be high, but angler satisfaction low. So the question is, which is better? A bunch of angry customers or a few really happy ones?

 

[Mike]

Well, many streams receive multiple stockings.

 

[Dave_W]

I can only speak from my own observations on local streams - I don't have data, but I think a WCO doing angler counts or surveys would find that angler use on many of the smaller, local streams around here is very low after late April/early May. Here in SCPA, most ATWs get one in-season stocking and it's usually around late April, early May. It does bring out some fishermen, but I don't see very many. Perhaps the few anglers out and about will catch (release, or keep) many of these trout, but I'm skeptical. Many of the stocked fish survive because they aren't getting caught. By July, virtually all of them will succumb to warm water. I make it a point most years to hit some of these streams in May/June with my creel to "utilize" these fish before they go belly up.

Keep in mind, I'm talking about the stocked ATWs in the valley of Adams Co. etc (streams up on South Mountain are a different matter as they retain cold water).

I'm not sure that in-season stockings should cease on all these creeks... but perhaps cutting some of them and reducing the in-season quota on the others might make a bit more sense from a stocking value standpoint. Money is tight these days and trout stocking is likely to face some cuts for a variety of reasons in the future. Might make sense to re-think some of these local streams.

 

[Dave_W]

I haven't looked much as lake stocking recently, but it used to be that some lakes got a late season stocking mainly, I think, for ice fishing.

I'm skeptical that many of these fish are caught (certainly not by ice anglers around here this year). I was at one of these lakes recently targeting pickerel and I got a couple stocked trout and there were a couple other anglers... so maybe these fish are utilized. However, in years such as this with no ice, I doubt many are caught.

I'm not sure that stocking trout for ice anglers, especially here in SCPA, is entirely cost efficient.

 

[Mike]

Dave, We had that problem over this way with respect to late fall/winter stockings. Most lakes never froze properly, but a very popular one just outside of Reading city limits that I pass fairly often still had some individuals fishing along the shoreline wherever there was no skim ice. Clearly, there were substantially fewer anglers shore fishing than there would have been ice fishing, but this month, given the nice weather, I would bet that there was a fair amount of shore fishing. In addition, when creel surveys were done there some years ago with differentially marked fish from fall, winter, and spring, fish from each stocking were found in the spring catch, indicating overwinter survival of at least some of those trout that were not caught in the popular ice fishery.

Also, I had seen overwinter stocked trout survival in the by-catch in every lake that I ever sampled in the very early spring even though the target species were walleye, perch, and muskies. These examples provide some evidence that in low or no ice years, the fish stocked in fall and for winter can at least in part contribute to a spring fishery since probably most of these lakes are also stocked in spring.

As for your post #9, it will be interesting to see what an updated statewide trout management plan will say about low use streams, low use preseason stockings, and low use inseason stockings if and when an update occurs. Likewise, when a certain stream class or segment of a stream class has been identified as having better use than expected, it will be interesting to see if that is addressed.

As for streams that get to warm, I take a similar approach. I have always desired that such streams have few stocked trout remaining (due to harvest) by the time they become too warm for most of the remaining fish to survive and I always make one final trip for the year to the local warming stream to harvest some fish.

 

[larkmark]

I think I see where you are coming from. I might just use different criteria for determining value other than numbers of fishermen.

Slightly different topic but related-- I would definitely be rethinking some of the Fall stockings. I would especially be stopping all Fall stocking on any stream where wild trout are present for starters. We have a couple local streams that are stocked in Fall(not sure if by private club or state) that have a good amount of wild trout...Talk about utilized! The banks are slick from the number of fishermen daily pounding them all through the spawn and rest of winter. Not good. Yet by your gauge this is a well utilized situation.

Fish that are not eaten usually end up feeding something. It just might not be a person. If it makes you feel better then go ahead but it shouldn't really enter into any decisions about worthwhile to stock or not.

 

[Jessed]

I think in season stocking just balances out the opening day crowds who never fish after the first week or two after opening day. Some of the high pressure streams get cleaned out in a week

 

[PennKev]

Over the past 10-15 years the number of guys I've seen out fishing because of in-season stockings has dwindled every year. The stocking dates used to be like min-openers, now they are no different than any other day, which means plenty of water to those who do show up, and plenty of fish. By the last stocking date a few local creeks are absolutely packed with fish. I wish it was like this when I was younger and not so negative towards stocked trout.

A couple years back I happened to be fishing on a stocking day. I did pretty well during the morning and then a stocking truck showed up with a couple cars following behind. The PFBC dumped a couple buckets in, the truck chasers fished for 15 minutes or so over the fresh stocked fish sitting dazed in ankle deep water and then, after no success, left. Fishing was good for the remainder of the time was there and not another person showed up. I was at a rather popular public access point too.

From what I see, anymore, the DHALO area's seem to get more pressure after a stocking than the general regs water.

But anyway, I think that across the board, it's best to just get the fish in the creek as soon as possible and not try to spread out the stocking dates in any way. Determine how many fish are going to be stocked and get them into the creeks as early in the spring as possible. This way, the crowd that still shows up on the opener and for a week or two afterwards has nothing to complain about. I realize some creeks have trouble holding fish for any length of time and maybe that is a special situation, but otherwise just get the fish stocked ASAP and call it a day. If it makes budgetary sense to cut the last in-season stocking on a lot of waters, I don't think many would actually notice during their fishing, but they would certainly complain when it was announced.