Allenberry Resort To Host Discussion on Yellow Breeches & Stream Bred Trout

[Bamboozle]

I personally just dont get why they dont just open it back up and let the state stock it.

Its never going to be a giant money maker. This isnt Spruce Creek.

They have less water but IF they stock big enough fish and could keep the two night package price under $1325. for a single angler...

It could be like Spruce Creek for those that want private water and are willing to pay.

 

[FisherOfMen]

Why wouldn't it work about the same? Stock big trout, feed them pellets, charge flyfishers to catch them.

It's a formula that's been used at various places.

They have less water but IF they stock big enough fish and could keep the two night package price under $1325. for a single angler...

It could be like Spruce Creek for those that want private water and are willing to pay.

Then why aren't they doing it?

 

[Bamboozle]

Then why aren't they doing it?

This whole thing went down in July when everyone on PAFF was on warmwater species. 😉

Then you had the whole game of chicken with the PFBC on whether they would continue stocking. Then the free fishing permit experiment to gauge interest.

Finally the realization that despite what the PSU dude said, if they want fish in their stretch NOW, they are going to have to buy them, put them in the creek AND figure out how to keep the folks that aren't paying $75 OFF their property...

And all of sudden it's almost November; hardly prime time for "fly fishing destination" weekend bookings....

Zero insight, but I have to believe that things didn't go exactly to plan and they just ran out of time in 2026. I expect things will start happening towards that goal like marketing & stocking in 2027.

 

[troutbert]

Then you had the whole game of chicken with the PFBC on whether they would continue stocking.

There was never any doubt about that. Public access was cut off, so the PFBC ended stocking. Just as in other places and just as expected.

 

[Bamboozle]

I could be wrong, but I honestly believe Allenberry thought their situation was going to be different because they were offering access to the public via a free permit and I don't believe they anticipated the outrage.

I'm also not entirely positive they understood that as a cooperative hatchery, Yellow Breeches Anglers (YBA) could not stock or sell them fish. If you recall, they initially alluded on their website that they had the cooperation of YBA.

Bottom line, I don't think in their mind it was a slam dunk...

 

[JimKennedy]

If they wanted to turn it into a meat hole destination like it was when I was a kid, they could buy and stock trout from a commercial hatchery. For 1,000 trout of better than average size, the cost would be somewhere between $11,500 and $14,500 (you can get the breakdown at the Musky Trout Hatchery website).

At $14,500 for 1,000 trout in the 14-15 inch range, you'd need to sell nearly 200 fishing passes (192) to break even. Musky also charges a delivery fee that varies based on distance from the hatchery and fuel costs, and I'm not figuring that into my math here. Allenberry also probably would want to add in a few trout in the 19 to 23 inch range, and those cost $70 to $90 PER FISH), so that's why I'm saying 200 passes, but it could be more.

If you scale back a little bit and go with 1,000 trout in the 11 to 12 inch, range, you're talking about $6,600, which brings the number of daily permits you need to sell to break even down to 88.

If you presume the most interest will come in March, April, May and early June, you're talking about 122 days (including 34 weekend days and two federal holidays, but also including a fair number of rainy and miserable days) when you're likely (1) to still have a significant percentage of your stocked fish in the creek and (2) general interest among a certain cohort of anglers who want to fly fish for medium to large stocked trout.

For purposes of this discussion, let's presume they can sell an average of three passes a day at $75 each for that full 122-day span (some weekend days with a dozen sold, some days when no one wants to fish), then you collect $22,450 for net revenue of $12,450.

Is this a viable business addition?

That depends. Millport Conservancy over on Lititz Run stocked a bunch of big trout each spring for their kids fishing day and paid for it by selling annual fishing passes for the stream, which I believe now cost in the range of $60 a pop. The passes always sell out, which is an indication to me that there's a market for this kind of thing. But the Millport passes are good for the whole season (not a single day), and the creek is a relatively steady limestoner in terms of temperature so the fish are more likely to be around into the autumn, making it more of a bargain than $75 for a day on the Breeches.

But there are no guarantees. Millport seems to be struggling with recent big increases in the price of live trout (roughly doubled over the past five or six years), and big trout are especially expensive. Plus early post stocking flooding at Millport washed a lot of fresh stockers downstream.

The Yellow Breeches is much less reliable in terms of its ability to hold trout for a full season because:

• It warms up pretty bad starting as early as late may and any stocked rainbows (especially) are likely to move.
• It's a flood prone creek and a flood right after stocking can easily carry a few thousand dollars worth of trout down into the open water just downstream.
• It's big enough where trout can pretty easily move up and out of the private water and into the cooler waters of the Children's Lake run / Boiling Springs Creek, which will soon be open water.

Here's where it gets a little bit interesting from a business standpoint. If you can get 200 or so guys to cover the cost of trout stocking through the day pass system, then you have big trout, already paid for, for your fly fishing overnight guests (at no extra cost beyond that of the room) and for those fly fishing classes they have on offer (again, with no extra costs to the person paying for the class).

Long and short of it: expect this to become a pay-to-fish place where day-pass guys are paying the freight for overnight guests and fly fishing students to cast over medium to big trout.

It's a damn shame because that spot as a public access fly fishing destination, flawed though it was, was hard-won thanks to the efforts of the old Limestone Legends generation.