Confirming what most of us already knew - 2020 fishing license sales

"The total number of Pennsylvania fishing licenses sold in 2020 was 934,239 – a 20-percent increase over 2019, and the most the state has sold since 2001."
 
The peak year was 1.1 million in 1991 I believe, but could have been 1990. That was also pre-trout stamp and 5.1 million trout were being stocked. Ninety percent of anglers were harvest oriented in stocked trout fisheries based on angler interviews. Creel limit was 8 trout, but anglers still only averaged 1 stocked trout per trip harvested. The average angling trip was 3 hours, similar to today. Seventy percent of stocked trout anglers caught nothing on any given day, including opening day. I doubt that has changed.

I just yawn when I read here about “heavy” trout angling pressure of today, how wild trout streams NOW need C&R or lower creel limits, and how there is so much poaching. The only time that there was what I would call “so much poaching” was last year during Covid when fish were being stocked, the public was off from work or working at home, but PFBC personnel were so thinned out by handling stocking without volunteers that poaching upticked. Some things never change though...when people can’t catch trout they seem to most frequently say that the stream is either fished out or poached out, although today we can add that the Mentored Youth Day is the problem. Makes me want to get out the violin.
 
Bahahaha. The old "it's fished out" line gets me every time. Maybe in other parts of the state stockies don't hold over well, but here in central PA most of our streams stay well within the temperature range for trout. I've had great days targeting stockies well past when I've heard other anglers say "oh, that stream is fished out."

I love how people toss that around and chalk bad days up to there being no fish left in the stream.
 
For many years I stocked with a transfer truck in NJ to get places heavy stocking trucks couldn't get too. I frequently heard that certain spots weren't stocked that I had stocked myself. Then when I would try to correct the comment I always heard my brother-in-law or neighbor told my so.

We always had truck followers which was weird because we stocked the same places with the same numbers of fish all the time. Figured one go through would be enough.

One had an old guy waiting at a pool for the truck. We dumped them in where the trail hit a pool which was maybe 50' from this guy. He complained because we didn't drop any right at his feet. The stocking world can get weird.
 
"Fished out, poached out, rain washed the fish out, overcrowded conditions scared the fish out..."

When I suck at catching fish, "I struck out..."

Just like in baseball, it ain't the ball, the bat or the pitchers fault...
 
It depends on the stream, and stretch of stream.

In many places the stocked trout ARE mostly removed in short order.

I know that from fishing experience. And also from looking through electrofishing reports of stocked streams.

In the typical 300 meters or so that they sample, some had less than 10 trout. Some had zero.



 
wgmiller wrote:
afishinado wrote:

Nope, didn't work, still block from reading.
Click to expand...

Time to ditch that Netscape browser! :-D
Click to expand...


Chrome is my browser.

I believe the subscription required sites recognize the IP address of users and clearing the browser of past hits on the site do nothing at all.
 
afishinado wrote:
Chrome is my browser.

I believe the subscription required sites recognize the IP address of users and clearing the browser of past hits on the site do nothing at all.
Click to expand...
While Chrome is the least private browser out there, even with aggressive privacy controls, another trick, which is opening a new private window doesn't always fool the newspaper websites either.

Most newspaper websites give you a couple of free looks each month. Once you hit that number, you are blocked.

If you still care to read the article, try a different device or try again June 1 ;-)
 
Bamboozle wrote:
afishinado wrote:
Chrome is my browser.

I believe the subscription required sites recognize the IP address of users and clearing the browser of past hits on the site do nothing at all.
Click to expand...
While Chrome is the least private browser out there, even with aggressive privacy controls, another trick, which is opening a new private window doesn't always fool the newspaper websites either.

Most newspaper websites give you a couple of free looks each month. Once you hit that number, you are blocked.

If you still care to read the article, try a different device or try again June 1 ;-)
Click to expand...

I looked into it and most newspaper subscription sites use a cookie to flag readers and block an article. The work around is to delete cookies for the site or with Chrome, accessing the site in the "incognito" mode also works.

 
This didn't work? It always seems to work for me...

Cookies.jpg
 
wgmiller wrote:
This didn't work? It always seems to work for me...

Cookies.jpg
Click to expand...




Deleting browsing history does nothing, but deleting cookies works. Just be careful to only delete cookies and PW's for that particular site and not for all sites.
 
That's not my primary browser, so I'm able to delete everything and it not be an issue. I certainly see why you wouldn't want to clear all that stuff from your primary browser though. With so many browsers out there, it's easy to keep one for situations such as this, where clearing all the data is no big deal.
 
I fished four different SEPA stocked streams over the past week. Yes the holes by parking were thin on trout, and those remaining had seen every fly, bait, and spinner you could think of. There were areas that have had fish in years past but not this year (or last), just a result of the pandemic. All that was required was some walking/hiking to get away from the parking areas and there were plenty of trout that were much more cooperative. One spot had so many trout, it almost seemed like a mistake.
 
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