Your plan to end Stocking over Wild

[Stenonema]

Every person on here has a platform provided. Many people on this forum are strongly opinionated and are of the anglers in the state perhaps some of the most knowledgeable. Its a fair assumption that all or most at this stage in the game recognize that stocking over wild trout is irresponsible management.
The question that I have for the Forum members is: what is your plan? Do you have an actionable plausible plan to change this practice.
I have read threads where every single hurdle or problem with the PFBC and anglers has been defined. adnausium.
With such a clear understanding of the issues, Does anyone have a plan?

the Blame and Complain campaign isn't cutting it. We need a plan.

If you are one of those anglers that doesn't believe there is anything we can do.... Please decline to comment.

This state needs a leader. Someone needs to take the lead and get it done. Trout Unlimited stands as a Cold Water resource group incapable of accomplishing this goal. Any person or organization that has been in a position to change this disaster is part of the problem.

This Forum and it's vocal members have the ability to brainstorm a solution.

 

[wildtrout2]

We all know what needs to be done, the real problem is getting the PBFC to do the right thing. At some point, the commission's license sales won't be able to cover the cost of raising/stocking these trout, then what?

 

[silverfox]

Probably not the answer anyone wants to hear, but PFBC has been moving toward reducing stocking over wild fish for years. I believe they're still doing it today but its not obvious or substantial over short periods of time.

It helps that anglers voice their opinion, but the biologists all (mostly) want the same thing. What's NOT likely to happen (regardless of what anyone outside the agency does or doesn't do) is some big announcement that the agency is cutting fish production by 80% or removing hundreds of miles of STW from the list. What IS likely to happen is they'll continue to gradually reduce the number of stocked trout in some waters where they know it will have the biggest impact, or where numerous anglers write in and complain about it.

Participating in public comments for proposed regulations does work. Before the last trout management plan was published, they published a draft for public comment. One of the items was regarding the reduction in stocking brook trout over wild native brook trout. That's a fairly recent change, by the way, and I suspect the letter writing, public comments, and even online grumbling played a role in that. The original language said they would replace the stocked brook trout with brown and rainbow trout. I wrote in and suggested that they should primarily replace brook trout with rainbow trout, and in the final plan, that's what it says. I don't know if I'm the only one who wrote in with that specific suggestion, and it doesn't matter if I was or wasn't. I don't need or want recognition or ownership of anything that ultimately happens with regard to trout stocking or anything else. My point is that if you look back at what has changed, angler feedback has likely played a big role in just about everything.

My biggest issue with all of this is that I'm not convinced the stocked trout is the biggest issue. Not the fish themselves anyway. The biggest issue, as it relates to brook trout primarily, but all wild trout are impacted, is incidental mortality due to increased (unnatural) angling pressure. That said, looking at it realistically, that pressure only occurs during a very short window in the spring. The amount of incidental mortality compared to natural mortality is likely low.

Frankly, for me anyway, the online complaining is simply blowing off steam. There aren't a lot of places where conversing about such esoteric issues makes sense. This forum is one, though it obviously annoys some people who would rather talk about how good their reach cast is.

Anyway, I think people just keep doing what they're doing. Adjustments to stocking will continue to be made. Maybe even some other good stuff that will benefit all wild trout species. Some of it might happen after we're casting in the big river in the sky, and that's ok. We should all probably have a little more faith in the system and the professionals who manage it. That said, it's still fun to play natural resource manager armchair quarterback.

 

[rangerkiller275]

We all know what needs to be done, the real problem is getting the PBFC to do the right thing. At some point, the commission's license sales won't be able to cover the cost of raising/stocking these trout, then what

We all know what needs to be done, the real problem is getting the PBFC to do the right thing. At some point, the commission's license sales won't be able to cover the cost of raising/stocking these trout, then what?

we need more game wardens stop the over fishing and the cast netting

 

[pcray1231]

Simple. Lower the biomass requirement for class A. I don't know that I'd go all the way to every stream on the natural repro list. But what is currently class B for sure, and I could argue class C's as well. You don't have to change the rule of not stocking class A's, you just lower the requirement to be class A. Threshold somewhere between what is currently class B and C. And that's for all species of trout.

As a second thing, I would say stop stocking brook trout altogether. Heading that direction already. If you don't stock them, then any brook trout you catch is known to be wild. That does 2 things. It ends DNA influence of stocked fish on native populations. And, it allows you to make brook trout C&R statewide, without any major public backlash. On a stocked class D stream, you can still keep the stockers, but if its a brookie, let it go. That also gives reason for all the dads out there, with their kids on opening day, to teach the kid to identify a brook trout and explain their importance, adjust tactics so that you don't hurt the brook trout, etc. Voluntarily.

 

[rangerkiller275]

We all know what needs to be done, the real problem is getting the PBFC to do the right thing. At some point, the commission's license sales won't be able to cover the cost of raising/stocking these trout, then what?

i saw you post about wyomissing creek well it is a very well hiden secret i fish there ever day after work i catch and release i have caught browns as big as 4 lbs in there

 

[silverfox]

One thought to expand on my long winded response is to suggest PA change the season to something more in line with what MD and WV do. Many of Maryland's waters are open year-round with harvest allowed during stocking. Different waters have different closure periods, but even the waters that are closed during stocking are only closed for a week. Some others are open right through stocking and they spread out stocking over weeks, or in WV's case, months. This may be something that might have widespread acceptance among all trout anglers.

All of this spreads out angling pressure, which, as I said in my post above, is likely the biggest issue that actually does have a negative impact. Now, all that said, look what happened when PGC changed the opening day for rifle season. People like traditions. More than that, people don't like change.

 

[jifigz]

I think Silverfox is spot-on and I also think Wildtrout2 makes a good point. The stocking program itself will one day implode.

Pcray, not so easy. I had a stream surveyed last year and it is Class A. I knew it was Class A. I had a phone-call with the biologist and he confirmed it is Class A and shared the results. This stream is my favorite small stream brown trout water. The biologist told me, more or less, that he almost was reprimanded for surveying the stream because he wasn't supposed to. It is one he "tacked on" and wasn't in their originial plans. I think it is cool he did that for me. I also see the "politics" of stocked trout. I get it.

I used to care much more about stocking over wild fish. I don't care much anymore, really. I am not talking about the brook trout crusades, yes, they need more protection, but the brown trout continues to do better and better despite stocking/angling pressure. Would they be better off without being stocked over? Probably. But they are doing amazingly well with being stocked over. They have continued to develop into greater populations throughout the last 100 years as water quality has improved despite being stocked over. I will happily wait it out for the stocking program to slowly fail and falter. We are achieving our goals slowly through the PFBC's own poor mismanagement.

Oh, and I should add that the small brown trout stream I had surveyed is a stocked water. I thought that part was suggested but just to be clear.

 

[jifigz]

i saw you post about wyomissing creek well it is a very well hiden secret i fish there ever day after work i catch and release i have caught browns as big as 4 lbs in there

If you post comments like this on the internet it only helps to spread your secrets. There are no true "secrets" in the world anymore, but doing things such as that doesn't help when the whole world is just a Google search away.

 

[wildtrout2]

i saw you post about wyomissing creek well it is a very well hiden secret i fish there ever day after work i catch and release i have caught browns as big as 4 lbs in there

You must be thinking of someone else, I've NEVER posted anything about wyomissing creek. Don't even know where it is. 🙂

 

[jifigz]

Simple. Lower the biomass requirement for class A. I don't know that I'd go all the way to every stream on the natural repro list. But what is currently class B for sure, and I could argue class C's as well. You don't have to change the rule of not stocking class A's, you just lower the requirement to be class A. Threshold somewhere between what is currently class B and C. And that's for all species of trout.

So I see you have edited your post and it is not how it was when I initially responded.

I agree about stopping stocking brook trout altogether and I think the commission is slowly heading that way. They should probably stop stocking browns too. Stock all rainbows for 2 reasons. 1) They represent the smallest segment of our wild trout, so if you catch a rainbow, you can be 99% sure it is a stockie. 2) they are the cheapest and most efficient strain of trout to be reared in a hatchery. Rainbows and hatcheries go together like burgers.

If you lower the limit on a Class A stream but don't "change the rule" and you allow them to continue to be stocked then how are you preventing wild fish from not being stocked over. The current rule is to not stock Class A's, unless it is Kish or Bald Eagle or yada yada.

And if you lower the limit and just ignore the fact that it is Class A (just like the stream I had surveyed last August) then again what are you preventing? it can meet the requirements but if you don't designate it Class A then who cares.

 

[pcray1231]

Well, ok, then add "actually follow your own rule".

 

[Bamboozle]

I am not a fan of stocking over Class A streams and wish it wasn't done. However, I often wonder why I am of that opinion besides the selfish reason that stocking attracts fishermen.​

Case in point:

There is one stocked Class A section on one stream that I have been fishing regularly since the late 1980's. Since that time and based on identification to the best of my ability I've caught exactly one stocked trout (a rainbow trout) and once when I took my nephew there he caught a stocked rainbow.

I realize that's hardly a scientific study and it's only one stream section but that's only two stockers caught with no noticeable decrease in the size & numbers of wild fish I catch in almost 40 years of fishing there.

Maybe that's because the anglers who harvest or dramatically mishandle their fish are doing the deeds to the stockers and reducing THEIR numbers but if so, isn't that good for the wild fish?

Bottom line, sorry to p!$$ off the purists but I guess I don't see this stocking thing as catastrophically detrimental as others.

My plan which is a wild TROUT plan:

Forget the brookie or bust love fest and what works in Montana or Maryland. 😉​

​

Freeze the number of Stocked Class A's for the time being, Executive Director & politics be dammed!​

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End the under the radar club stockings of Class A sections, kid's and kid rodeos be dammed!!​

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Make it MANDATORY if stocking is to be continued on the existing Class A sections they are surveyed NO LESS than annually to establish biomass numbers and the results are PUBLISHED.​

​

If there is a DOCUMENTED decrease in wild fish biomass after two or three successive years, end stocking for the same number of years and survey again.​

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Adjust as necessary and consider the same thing on Class B and C waters.​

​

This wouldn't cost much money and would be easy to implement while have the additional benefit of ruffling lots of feathers. 🙂

 

[wildtrout2]

I am not a fan of stocking over Class A streams and wish it wasn't done. However, I often wonder why I am of that opinion besides the selfish reason that stocking attracts fishermen.​

Selfish? Maybe. I guess I'm selfish too then. But, the stocking that attracts "more fisherman" causes additional incidental mortality of wild trout that wouldn't happen nearly as often if those same streams weren't stocked to begin with.

The wild trout would be better off, and a lot of fishermen would actually have to learn how to find trout that weren't just dumped into the same holes year after year. Heck, I don't think the average fisherman knows the difference between a wild trout and a stocked trout. 😉

 

[Bamboozle]

Selfish? Maybe. I guess I'm selfish too then. But, the stocking that attracts "more fisherman" causes additional incidental mortality of wild trout that wouldn't happen nearly as often if those same streams weren't stocked to begin with...

I mean selfish in that I like to be alone on a stream.

It is the same reason I'm not a big fan of Special Regulations, lists, and general spot burning...

 

[Fish Sticks]

It comes down to two things in my opinion.

Native brook trout are getting conservation funding, identified as priorities (on paper only) in PA, and their management and recovery is supposedly the responsibility of fisheries managers in PA as per the state wild life action plan. You can say it should be about wild trout but can “wild trout” be listed in wild life action plans. The Chesapeake bay doesn’t have a 2025 “wild trout” restoration goal, its a native brook trout one. So if you know PA fish and boat will not do anything abruptly or anything they don’t want to do it becomes about the court of public opinion telling elected officials that PAFB is not doing its job. And there is very objective evidence to support this with their failure to meet multiple brook trout deliverables in the chesapeake bay plan and their own wild trout plan. Its a known fact their in financial trouble, its a known fact they used most of 27.5 million of growing greener 2 funds for their hatcheries they cannot afford based on revenue. Its a know fact that PSU independent businesses analysis told them they cannot afford what their doing and will be financially insolvent should they not close hatcheries and they did not and their still bleeding money.

You can say it has to be about “wild trout” because you like to fish for them but pushing based on something that ambiguous that is not prioritized in their documentation/ partnerships with EBTJV/bay orgs is a fools errand. Brook trout is a more effective measurable for taking them to task because its the priorty onnpaper and their sucking at it. “Wild trout “ are doing great as j -figs pointed out because invasive browns are taking over. So this is why arguing their not doing enough for “wild trout” is a fools errand.
Between EBTJV, NFWF, PFBC, USGS people just don’t get it that at the big boy table which we are NOT sitting at people don’t talk “wild” they talk native vs. Invasive and conservative need. We can yell wild trout from the kids table all we want but its not the same language the people writing checks for grants for over a billion dollars like recovering americas wild life act are using. “Wild trout” represents and incoherent goal.

Measure what they measure, hold them to their own goals their espousing and not meeting, and expose the waste, fraud, and abuse to the public and force legislators to act. We need to reach outside angling circles and get awareness in the general public which has always been the plan for alot of us. And at the same time we are engaging elected officials, governors, AG’s, and others. I have solicited all of you at one time to engage in this process.

We just had a whole thread about how DEP is not talking “wild trout” according to john Arways post, writing is on the wall

 

[jifigz]

A few observations:

1) Fishsticks - I think your post #16 is accurate, on-point, and worth noting to all.
2) No one has even presented a plan, which is what the OP asked for, except for Bamboozle in post #13. The rest of us have all just expressed opinions again and why "xyz" is good, bad, etc. For this, I applaud you Bamboozle I overall like your simple plan, but looking for a decrease in wild fish for a few years in a row is sort of a bad way to go about things. If stockers had that much impact that they would decrease the wild population so much year after year, then hell, most places wouldn't have any wild fish (or at least not robust populations like we have) after being stocked over for the last 60 years or more. That would indicate the swings of wild fish on a year to year basis would be affected by other factors, not stockies as much.

3) This would be my plan as follows:

Make a 5 or 10 year plan or something to phase out stocking and make the public aware. Educate on other fishing opportunities that exist year-round and encourage the public to learn about other fishing sources. Totally revamp budget to account for the loss of the stocking program and the revenue that got burnt on the stocking program.

My plan won't happen anytime soon, though. Probably ever. It might actually account for more traffic on our other wild trout streams that don't see much traffic. Boy, that would suck.

 

[Fish Sticks]

As someone who has engaged with staffers and representatives the problem with these specific plans is that it leaves doors open for government organizations to skirt doing them by claiming its not logistically feasible. My plan has and is let the people responsible for oversight of Pa fish and boat know their not doing their job and that their expensive obsession with hatcheries is the primary reason. From there it focuses on a problem and leaves no out for “your 10 year plan is not feasible because of x, y,z” ot in-fact actually states what PFBC is doing is not feasible financially.

And its not to end stocking its to reform it.

 

[pcray1231]

I thought what I presented was in the form of a plan.

 

[troutbert]

I thought what I presented was in the form of a plan.

It was a plan, for the PFBC to follow.

But I think the OP is asking what is OUR plan, as anglers interested in native & wild trout, to try to influence fisheries management to reduce stocking over wild & native trout?

We've covered the "problem describing" pretty well. But now what is our plan of ACTION?