Last week on Pennsylvania waters, an annual regulatory change occurred with no fanfare. The state’s regular trout season, open since April 13, ended Monday on all trout-stocked waters. The extended season, with legal harvest reduced from five to three combined species, opened Tuesday and will continue through Feb. 28.
Trout season begins with a splash, literally and figuratively, ending months of cabin fever and signaling the opening of fishing camps and the start of new outdoor adventures. By September, however, creel surveys show most Pennsylvania anglers have given up on trout. That’s unfortunate. Although there are more stocked trout in the water in the spring, some of the state’s best trout-fishing experiences can be had at the end of summer and beginning of fall.
“I’m out there at 8 a.m. with everybody else on opening day,” said Jason Weeser of Greensburg. “But in September the water cools down, low summer flows pick up again, no one’s on the water and there I am, alone on a trout stream and the fish are biting. It’s like heaven.”
The state Fish and Boat Commission has documented the ebb and flow of angler interest in trout fishing. In the spring each acre of Approved Trout Waters is used for an average of 440 angler hours. Fall use averages 99 hours per acre. Stream sections that drop below 100 angler hours per acre become candidates for removal from fall stocking.
The agency still raises and releases 3.5 million trout per year, but in 2013 it overhauled stocking schedules, ending some fall deliveries and reallocating those fish for periods of higher demand in the spring.
Some waters generate a “core following,” according to Fish and Boat staff. Urban impoundments can attract anglers throughout the year. And because more fall and winter fishing occurs on stream sections designated Delayed Harvest Artificial Lures Only (DHALO) and Catch-and-Release Fly Fishing Only (CRFFO), those stretches remain on fall stocking schedules.
“The harvest [limit] goes down in the fall because we stock fewer trout then,” said Gary Smith, Fish Boat’s southwest region fisheries manager.
While spring-stocked trout are expected to not survive the onslaught of anglers and warm summer waters, Mr. Smith said most trout stocked in the autumn are probably still around when the regular season opens in the spring. Like most freshwater fish in northern climates, stocked trout eat more in the fall — their bodies instinctively bulking up for winter. Mr. Smith said fall-stocked browns and brook trout often attempt to spawn, but conditions are rarely right and the stocked fish are notoriously less healthy than natives. Few successfully reproduce.
This year, Fish and Boat’s autumn stockings begin statewide Oct. 1. In Allegheny County, the three Deer Lakes and the DHALO sections of Deer and Pine Creeks and will get rainbow trout Oct. 22.
Elsewhere in southwestern Pennsylvania: (Beaver County) Raccoon Lake Oct. 3. (Butler) Harbar Acres Lake Oct. 23. (Fayette) Meadow Run DHALO waters and Dunlap Creek Lake Oct. 3; Dunbar Creek CRFFO section and Virgin Run Lake Oct. 4. (Somerset) Laurel Hill Creek (upper and lower DHALO sections) and Laurel Hill Lake Oct. 2. (Washington) Canonsburg and Dutch Fork lakes Oct. 1. (Westmoreland) Loyalhanna Creek DHALO stretch and Indian, Keystone, Mammoth, Northmoreland lakes Oct. 22; upper and lower Twin Lakes Oct. 23.
Mr. Weeser said he can be found evenings through about mid-November throwing Trout Worms and spinners on the Loyalhanna.
Winter trout stockings are scheduled: (Allegheny County) North Park Lake Dec. 13; (Beaver) Bradys Run Lake Nov. 19; and (Butler) Glade Run Lake Nov. 5
Fly fishing courses
Community College of Allegheny County will host several fly fishing courses with Days on the Water instructors Scott Loughner and Rob Reeder. Courses begin Sept. 17 and include Introduction to Fly Fishing, Introduction to Fly Tying, Intermediate Fly Fishing and Advanced Fly Casting Techniques. Get details at DaysOnTheWater.com.
First Published: September 5, 2019, 2:32 p.m.