Home >  Sports >  Outdoors

Sunday, February 18, 2001

By Deborah Weisberg

Victorian-era anglers who wanted to stock their favorite streams simply had to ask the government for fish.

	Special Programs at a Glance Catch-and-release A "no kill" program that increases catch rates and minimizes mortality. Fly fishing and spinning gear with artificial lures only are allowed. Waters are open year-round. Delayed harvest The largest and most popular of the special regulations programs, allows for fishing year-round, with harvest only from June 15 to Labor Day. Some areas are limited to fly fishing, while others permit artificial lures. Creel limits: three, combined species, nine inches. Selective harvest Implemented in 1995, limited harvesting program enhances populations of wild trout--especially brown trout -- and allows more anglers to catch larger fish. Some selective harvest areas confine anglers to artificial lures. Others permit use of all tackle. Waters are open year-round, with harvest allowed from opening day of trout season, April 14, to Labor Day. Creel limit: two, combines species, 12-inch brown, nine-inch, all others. Trophy trout A program that enhances catch and release rates of nine to 14 inch trout, and limited harvesting of even larger trout. Small and moderate size waters are designated trophy trout artificial lures only, while larger waters are trophy trout all tackle. Water is open year-round, with harvest allowed from opening day of trout season, April 14, to Labor Day. Creel limit: two, combined species, 14 inches. Heritage trout A catch and release program that celebrates the state's fly-fishing tradition. Consolidates the former Limestone Springs Wild Trout and No Harvest Fly-Fishing Only programs. Select trout stocked lakes Implemented in 1996, extends fishing on designated lakes through March 31. These lakes are closed from April 1 until opening day of trout season, April 14. Creel limit: 3 trout, combined species.

"They were called subscribers," said Dan Tredinnick, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, one of the earliest such agencies in the country, dating back to the Civil War. "They'd write to the U.S. Fish Service and say, 'Hey, send me so many fish for such and such a stream ..."

The trout would arrive in milk barrels, by train, such as the one depicted on the 1999 trout stamp. Mortality, Tredinnick surmised, was probably pretty high.

While the state's first hatchery -- Lancaster's Donegal Springs, circa 1873 -- no longer operates, the tiny nearby town of Muddy Creek Fork still depends on a narrow gauge railway to deliver rainbows, browns and brookies from Big Spring 70 miles away in Cumberland County.

The rest of the state gets its trout by trucks -- 45 in all, each weighing 11 tons fully loaded. Lined with fiberglass and filled with enough oxygenated spring water and fish to fill more than 14 bathtubs, each $50,000 rig is designed to keep its cargo safe, down to the white paint that deflects the sun's heat from the tankard's surface.

The Great White Fleet, as it's called, is on the road right now. In fact, it seldom stops, since stockings are done three-quarters of the year. Late winter stockings are winding down now, but preseason stockings will begin March 1 and continue until opening day April 14. Then, in-season stockings will take over. In all, more than five million rainbows, browns, brookies and goldens are transported from nine state trout hatcheries to 790 streams and 120 lakes a year, as special regulations programs offer anglers increasing opportunities to wet a line.

Created in 1981 as part of the Operation Future trout management program -- when stockings shifted from politically driven to resource-based -- special regulations programs enhance fishing options when pressure is low and water is cold and high.

The commission first began extending the approved trout water season -- a month or two at a time -- 50 years ago, and now it runs Labor Day to March.

Within the past five years, the "select lakes" program has extended the season even more, permitting fishing on 23 area lakes, plus the Youghiogheny and Shenango river tailouts, during all of March, when anglers can keep three, 7-inch trout.

The six year old "all tackle selective harvest" program for wild trout streams limits takes of larger fish in order to improve catch rates for more anglers. Locally, it includes only Camp Run in Westmoreland County, though Tredinnick said more might be added. "The goal is to increase populations of bigger fish. We used to think that fly fishing caused less hooking mortality, but studies show that the difference between bait and lures isn't so dramatic, so, the philosophy now is, where possible keep select reg waters for more and bigger fish, but open it to all fishermen."

There are no "selective harvest" artificial lure waters in this part of the state.

Two years ago, a 3.5-mile portion of the Youghiogheny River in Fayette and Somerset became the only water in this area to be added to the "all-tackle trophy trout" program, also aimed at enhancing catch rates for more fishermen.

"The program is designed for bigger waters, to grow bigger fish," Tredinnick said. "It raises the bar on fish sizes, since the habitat and forage base can support that."

Delayed-harvest streams can always be fished, though, in most cases, takes are legal only from June 15 to Labor Day. Of the two dozen such streams in Western Pennsylvania, only six are confined to fly fishing while the rest allow artificial lures, such as crank baits, spinners baits, flies and streamers.

The state also manages eight small "heritage trout angling" streams, which are celebrated fly-fishing spots in central and eastern Pennsylvania. Catch and release year-round, the most famous of these fishing holes might be Yellow Breeches Creek in Cumberland County. The only one in this part of the state is the West Branch of Caldwell Creek in Warren.

Far more scientific than the informal stocking efforts of a century ago, the state's stream-management program aims to balance anglers' desires with resource management needs. Though all have restrictions of some sort, regarding hours, season, tackle and creel amounts, Tredinnick said, "We try to keep fishermen, land-owners and conservationists happy."

With fishing license sales declining, he said, the state is eager to make fishing more appealing and convenient.

Rich Kacsuta, owner of Loyalhanna Fishing Post on Route 30 in Ligonier, does a brisk business at this time of year.

"April and May are the best fishing, but March can be good as temperatures get warmer and hatches start coming off the streams," Kacsuta, a former Squirrel Hill resident, said. "There's a whole lot of bugs that develop in March, in the earlier hatches. The early bugs are dark and big, and, as the months wear on, they tend to be bright and smaller.

"We sell 10 varieties of stone flies and a dozen different kinds of dark streamers that work well this time of year. Royal Wulff, Black Nosed Dice, Brown Hackel, Woolly Buggers, Muddler Minnows and March Brown Flies are all good in March, when fish are sluggish and close to the bottom, and have to be coaxed to hit."

Delayed-harvest areas are the most popular and plentiful, and they couldn't be stocked without public support, Tredinnick said. While trucks can literally shoot fish into some streams through huge hoses, five gallon buckets are needed to hand-carry others.

"We get a lot of families with young kids," Tredinnick said. "Some people like to see where fish are going because they think it gives them an edge. And when people see buckets of fish, it gets them excited, makes them want to go out with their rod."

While rainbows are the dominant stocked trout, they are followed by browns, brookies and purebred golden trout, originally crossbred from West Virginia goldens and rainbows and sometimes called palominos.

Only brookies are native to Pennsylvania, and the first hatchery-raised trout were browns, which were introduced to the still-functioning Corry culture station near Erie in 1886. The state began raising rainbows in 1888.