Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette Dave Schall of Bradenville does some fly fishing in Linn Run near Rector, Pa., in May. Click photo for larger image.

The fate of a Clinton County wild trout stream that for some has come to symbolize the crux of trout management in Pennsylvania has finally been decided. At their quarterly meeting in Erie last week, nine members present from the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission's 10-member board voted to turn a 5.5-mile section of Young Woman's Creek into a stocked catch and release fishery.

It was one of several actions taken on a range of issues from the age minimum for personal watercraft operators to whether the Fish and Boat Commission staff should have more leeway when it comes to allocating trout to streams.

Fewer than a dozen citizens attended the two-day meeting, although it was open to the public.

The most notable person in attendance was Ken Undercoffer, secretary and former president of Pennsylvania Trout, the Pennsylvania Council of Trout Unlimited whose on-going efforts to preserve Young Woman's Creek weren't enough to keep the Fish and Boat Commission from removing it from the Class A wild trout list and adding it to the state's stocking program.

"Of course I'm disappointed," said Undercoffer of Clearfield who testified Monday. "There's a place for hatchery trout, just not in wild trout streams."

The Fish and Boat Commission contends that three recent surveys confirm that Young Woman's is no longer a Class A stream. Undercoffer said the surveys were taken during and just after droughts and don't reflect the true quality of the wild brook and brown trout he routinely catches there. He also maintains that the Western Clinton Sportsmen's Association has illegally planted trout in Young Woman's Creek, and that stopping that practice would nurture the stream back to Class A status.

"Give a stream four or five years and God and Mother Nature will sort it out," he said. Both the state and the Western Clinton Sportsmen will stock the stream said Commission spokesman Dan Tredinnick.

Young Woman's Creek was managed under the now-defunct Selective Harvest program. The Fish and Boat Commission had considered making it a delayed harvest artificial lures only (DHALO) water, a move Undercoffer also fought. Catch and Release, meaning no fish can be harvested in any season, was an attempt to give both groups some of what they want, Tredinnick said. "We knew no one would be completely happy so we attempted compromise."

Undercoffer doesn't see it that way.

"[The Commission] thinks if it stocks another stream it'll sell another license," he said. "But in the long run, you draw more revenue with wild trout fisheries because people will travel to fish for wild trout, and a growing number of people want to have a wilderness experience. They're the same people who like to hike and mountain bike."

Undercoffer said the Fish and Boat Commission has turned into "an amusement company that sees wild trout as competition for its stocking program." Tredinnick responded by acknowledging Pennsylvania Trout's contributions toward habitat improvements statewide, but added, "they're not our only constituent."

On Thursday, Western Clinton County Sportsmen Club president Ray Werts and Fish and Boat Commission executive director Doug Austen were appointed to a Governor's task force on how to promote outdoors-related tourism in Clinton and other north-central Pennsylvania counties.

"The commission has turned trout fishing into a big Easter egg hunt, and they're the Easter bunny," Undercoffer said. "More people are finding out that wild trout fishing is a great way to fish. You may not catch a lot of them, but it beats following a stocking truck around. If that sounds elitist, so be it: I'm an elitist."

Undercoffer said he figured the commissioners had made up their minds before they heard him testify. "My goal is to educate the commission over time," he said. "I figure eventually it'll sink in."

He also expressed concern about an agenda item aimed at allowing Fish and Boat Commission staff to bypass stocking formulas based on stream size, water quality and angler pressure in allocating trout, though the board postponed seeking public comment pending further study.

"We've got 6,000 miles of stream and 200 lakes and each is pigeon-holed into one of eight scientifically determined categories," Tredinnick said. "We'd like more latitude when it comes to stocking."

The board did vote to seek public comment on whether staff should be allowed to publicize certain streams more than others, as a way of directing angler pressure to specific waters, said Tredinnick.

The board also decided to hold off until January voting on a rule that would increase the minimum age of personal watercraft operators from 12 to 16. The board will seek more public input, said Tredinnick, since it has received just one letter on either side of the issue, and that was from the Personal Watercraft Industry Association, which supports the age increase because of concerns about user safety.

The board voted to re-designate Lower Burrell Park Pond in Westmoreland County as a catch and release fishery, acquiescing to a request by Lower Burrell, which owns the water. The four-acre lake has healthy populations of largemouth bass and bluegill.

The board voted against establishing a slow, no wake zone in the back channel of the Ohio River between Neville Island and Coraopolis.

Finally, it voted to extend the DHALO section of Meadow Run in Fayette County from 1.7 miles to 2.2 miles or from the mouth of Meadow Run at the Youghiogheny River upstream to the Dinner Bell Road bridge adjacent to the Ohiopyle State Park office effective in January.