The new 2019 Pennsylvania fishing license gives anglers an opportunity to support their favorite fishing programs.
The price of a 2019 adult resident fishing license will remain the same — $22.90 — as will the cost of the most common add-ons (trout-salmon stamp and Lake Erie permit, $9.90 each or $15.90 for a combination permit). License fee revenue already goes to aquatic wildlife and habitat management, the trout hatchery program and other functions of the state Fish and Boat Commission. But for the first time, with the issuance of a 2019 license, anglers are able to donate money to the individual programs they support through the purchase of voluntary permits.
“Funds generated through these permits will be reinvested into their respective program,” stated a Fish and Boat Commission statement. “While the purchase supports individual programs, possession of a voluntary permit does not entitle the holder to any additional privileges.”
The voluntary permits, including a vendor processing charge, are priced at $11.90 each for separate bass, musky and habitat-waterways conservation permits, and $26.90 for a wild trout and enhanced waters permit.
The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission is a user-funded quasi-governmental agency that operates primarily on funds generated through the sale of fishing licenses, boating registrations and associated fees. It gets no Pennsylvania General Fund tax revenue to support its programs, and by law cannot raise the price of fishing licences without the consent of the legislature.
Former Fish and Boat director John Arway lost that legislative battle, as well as his job for pushing too hard for a revenue increase. Despite a drop in fishing license sales, increased operating costs and a poll suggesting that Pennsylvania anglers would be willing to pay more for a license, lawmakers have refused to authorize a fishing license fee increase since 2005.
Giving anglers a way to financially support their kind of fishing was Mr. Arway’s idea. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reapportions $5 to Fish and Boat for each license sold, but the funding is not provided for the sale of permits including the new species-specific tags, trout stamps and Lake Erie permits.
Return of native trout
Wild trout are back in the headwaters of the Casselman River. At the recent Maryland Water Monitoring Council Conference in Linthicum Heights, Md., the Department of Natural Resources discussed its discovery of native brook trout that were returning to streams that were once uninhabitable.
“The goal of increasing brook trout densities has been realized and has also increased brook trout fishing opportunities in Maryland,” said Alan Klotz, western region fisheries manager for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, in a statement.
The Casselman loops from the Maryland panhandle south of Grantsville north into Pennsylvania past Meyersdale and Rockwood and swings south again, meeting Laurel Hill Creek and the Youghiogheny River at the turkeyfoot in Confluence, Somerset County. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission stocks the Casselman with brook and brown trout from the state line to Coal Run at Boynton, and several of its tributaries.
In the 1950s the Casselman River watershed carried chemical pollutants from abandoned coal mines, which decimated brook trout populations in many of its tributary streams. To restore the 66-square mile watershed, crews from the Maryland Department of the Environment and the Youghiogheny River Watershed Association built 15 limestone treatment systems in Garrett County, Maryland.
During the summer, freshwater biologists sampling Casselman headwater streams discovered trout. Several creeks within Savage River State Forest, once barren due to acidic mine leakage, now support naturally reproducing brook trout populations. Among them, Alexander Run, Tarkiln Run and the upper end of Big Laurel Run contain native brook trout populations exceeding 1,000 fish per mile.
First Published: December 28, 2018, 1:00 p.m.
