It's almost 2023, name your favorite brookie setup

[pcray1231]

A lot of letter of the law stuff has some gray area like that.

I always note Tionesta Creek/Tionesta reservoir near my camp. Technically speaking, the stocked trout water ends at Kelletville bridge. Below that is managed as part of Tionesta Lake. The problem is, there's several miles of creek below the bridge before you hit the actual backwaters of the lake. They stock heavily at the bridge, as well as several tributaries that run in below, so the creek below the bridge is full of stocked trout. But it's not technically listed as stocked trout water (STW).

Since below the bridge is not STW, as such, you can technically fish on a C&R basis before the season. But the very famous pool just below the bridge is along a campground, and will be shoulder to shoulder on opening day, with the majority of the anglers releasing everything they catch anyway. By letter of the law, you can fish there before opening day, but I wouldn't suggest it. It'd be questionable if you escape with your life. And at the very least you'll be tossed into a very cold river by some people who think you're jumping the season opener, and they ain't gonna be all that impressed by any printed out regulation you may carry in a pocket.

Another one that's very clear, but still kinda funny, is the Tully below red bridge (not in the special regs section). From there to the mouth is still listed as "stocked trout waters open to year round fishing". But I have fished pre-season many times and got all kinds of comments, warnings, had people call the WCO on me, call me names, throw rocks in the creek saying outlaws like me shouldn't catch anything, etc. You just say that this is strocked trout water open to year round fishing, you're allowed to fish, but they don't believe you. Then you take a walk on opening day just to see the circus, and many of them are releasing what they catch! Someone will complain they can't get into a good spot, and you say, shoulda been here yesterday.... haha.

 

[Bamboozle]

That's crazy that there was a regulation on leader length. Though I must admit, it would be funny to see a Tenkara user get booted for fishing that style, I'd definitely ruse the fisher as he was leaving the creek.

When fishing the Little Lehigh I am just happy to see someone play/hold a trout properly enough to not kill the fish or not chumming for trout with hatchery pellets (I did witness horrible fish handling and chumming this year). Wish your self-righteous judgers would have been around to see that!

Once on the Little Lehigh I had some comments made to me by a person who claimed to be affiliated with PFBC though he had no attire on suggesting any sort of PFBC/DCNR affiliation nor did he present to me any sort of ID indicated affiliation. He was mad that I was fishing for suckers, I'm being serious, and wanted to kick me off the water. I did leave eventually just to get him to shut up. I think the next time someone tries to pull something like that on me they'll be going for a swim, hopefully in cooler weather, and maybe then they can think about a better way to approach people.

Were you fishing for suckers in the FFO sections with bait? If so, he was right to hassle you...

Speaking of pellets & chumming...

Way way back when, I used to fish the "Kiddie Pool" at the Little Lehigh. The one and only time I ever took my wife fly fishing (she was my girlfriend back then), I took her to the wall by the hatchery and tied on a "pellet fly."

However I utilized a sneaky technique and I added about three super tiny "fly fishing" split shot to her leader placed about 2" apart. She didn't know how to cast so I had her just flipping that rig & pellet fly into the pod of fish below knowing that the fly & extra shot would sound like an handful of pellets hitting the water...

I was right... she hooked more than a few trout that day while the rest of the Kiddie Poll crowd couldn't figure things out.

If you see anybody using my shot trick there in the coming year, you can blame me for mentioning it although it isn't illegal...

Speaking of chumming, I once ratted out some folks to the South Central Region WCO when I saw them chumming with bread at the Run.

So beware of me when I know the law, I won't say anything...

I'll just make a phone call...

 

[Silent Ocelot]

A lot of letter of the law stuff has some gray area like that.

I always note Tionesta Creek/Tionesta reservoir near my camp. Technically speaking, the stocked trout water ends at Kelletville bridge. Below that is managed as part of Tionesta Lake. The problem is, there's several miles of creek below the bridge before you hit the actual backwaters of the lake. They stock heavily at the bridge, as well as several tributaries that run in below, so the creek below the bridge is full of stocked trout. But it's not technically listed as stocked trout water (STW).

Since below the bridge is not STW, as such, you can technically fish on a C&R basis before the season. But the very famous pool just below the bridge is along a campground, and will be shoulder to shoulder on opening day, with the majority of the anglers releasing everything they catch anyway. By letter of the law, you can fish there before opening day, but I wouldn't suggest it. It'd be questionable if you escape with your life. And at the very least you'll be tossed into a very cold river by some people who think you're jumping the season opener, and they ain't gonna be all that impressed by any printed out regulation you may carry in a pocket.

Another one that's very clear, but still kinda funny, is the Tully below red bridge (not in the special regs section). From there to the mouth is still listed as "stocked trout waters open to year round fishing". But I have fished pre-season many times and got all kinds of comments, warnings, had people call the WCO on me, call me names, throw rocks in the creek saying outlaws like me shouldn't catch anything, etc. You just say that this is strocked trout water open to year round fishing, you're allowed to fish, but they don't believe you. Then you take a walk on opening day just to see the circus, and many of them are releasing what they catch! Someone will complain they can't get into a good spot, and you say, shoulda been here yesterday.... haha.

Well if someone approaches me claiming to be affiliated with the DCNR they better present some documentation supporting such claim.

Also I like fishing below the red bridge, there's some good runs right there by the restrooms. Can't say I've ever had people being rude to me like they were to you but I did have a woman step on my Helios 3, luckily the rod went between a gap in the flip flops she was wearing so the rod was fine. I was still a bit irked about the situation and now never lay my fly rods down when rigging in an area with a lot of foot traffic.

 

[Silent Ocelot]

Were you fishing for suckers in the FFO sections with bait? If so, he was right to hassle you...

Speaking of pellets & chumming...

Way way back when, I used to fish the "Kiddie Pool" at the Little Lehigh. The one and only time I ever took my wife fly fishing (she was my girlfriend back then), I took her to the wall by the hatchery and tied on a "pellet fly."

However I utilized a sneaky technique and I added about three super tiny "fly fishing" split shot to her leader placed about 2" apart. She didn't know how to cast so I had her just flipping that rig & pellet fly into the pod of fish below knowing that the fly & extra shot would sound like an handful of pellets hitting the water...

I was right... she hooked more than a few trout that day while the rest of the Kiddie Poll crowd couldn't figure things out.

If you see anybody using my shot trick there in the coming year, you can blame me for mentioning it although it isn't illegal...

Speaking of chumming, I once ratted out some folks to the South Central Region WCO when I saw them chumming with bread at the Run.

So beware of me when I know the law, I won't say anything...

I'll just make a phone call...

Me!?!?! Using bait!?!?!? NEVER, I think this guy just wanted to feel like a he was in power. He almost looked homeless and looked like he wanted to antagonize people for his own amusement.

I also witnessed my "chumming incident" at the Kiddie pool.

The story goes like this;

Me and my friend's dad had fished the Little Lehigh all day. We decided to finish up at the Kiddie pool. We enter from the side of the creek opposite the cement wall and hatchery. Across the creek from us stood four anglers. I won't go into the exact details of what they looked like, unless we have an FBI profiler on here who could use that info the see if these people will commit more illegal activity on the creek, but they didn't look like the kindly old gentleman fly fisher.

One dude gets into a massive 10lb. brown. His fly line gets tangled with another guy's fly line and the trout breaks off as expected. I am watching these trout chase whatever it is these anglers are using. The trout are rising out of a run to hunt down and eat these flies, something I found quite odd as trout typically don't move that much to hit a small bug. Then I noticed a Zip-lock bag in what I presume to be a girlfriend of one of the anglers. I just made the connection and was like "wow". I should have reported them but I was selfish and was trying to get into fish.

 

[Bamboozle]

Silent Ocelot:

I don’t know what year or AT what time of the year it was when you were sucker fishing on the Little Lehigh, however...

...until 2022 when the PFBC started listing “Stocked Trout Waters” (formally Approved Trout Waters) by section, it was technically illegal to fish ANYWHERE on the Little Lehigh from March 1 until the Regional Opening Day except Section 8, the Fly Fishing Only (FFO) section immediately upstream of Bogart’s Bridge or Section 5, the other FFO section.

The reason is because the rest of the Little Lehigh was listed BY NAME in the Summary and that means other than Special Regulation sections it was ALL closed to fishing of any kind from March 1 until the Regional Opening Day.

Even with the recent change by the PFBC to define Stocked Trout Waters by section, the only sections that you can legally sucker fish with bait during the Closed Period is Section 1 in Berks County and Sections 3 & 6 in Lehigh County.

If you weren't fishing during the Closed Period prior to 2022 it's a moot point unless you were using bait in Sections 5 or 8.

That doesn’t mean some yahoo who can’t or doesn’t read won’t challenge you sucker fishing during that time of year, but it IS legal as is fishing for trout in Sections 1, 3 & 6.

In the meantime, you might want to do what I do and put the PFBC Regional Law Enforcement phone numbers in your phone. If there is another situation when someone tells you they are "affiliated" with the PFBC, take out your phone and tell them you are going to call and check...

...and you can rat out chummers... trust me it's a LOT of fun!!

 

[Silent Ocelot]

Ok, thank you for the information, I have learned a lot from your posts in this thread.

I forgot to mention that a DCNR truck rolled by while I was sucker fishing without a care in the world. I feel as though if I were doing illegal activity he would have fined me right then and there, and if that guy who was PFBC affiliated why didn't HE contact someone to reprimand me. I just thought it was a weird scenario.

Oh, I do fully intend to rat out any illegal fishing activities after I saw that deplorable activity at the LL. If I ever see those people again I will just tell them to pack it up and leave. the trout that they "caught" definitely died due to a prolonged 5+ minute out-of-water exposure time. The fish handling witnessed that day was comically bad.

There was one funny highlight in that when the jokers took a photo of the one trout they did catch after wrestling it out of their mesh net for 5 minutes, was the some older gentlemen downstream of the dad and I hollered up: "hey chief, let's get it back in the water." That dude was thoroughly disgruntled with the activities displayed by these clowns. The Kiddie pool was divided into two sides of people. On one hand you had ethical anglers with class releasing fish underwater and employing legal techniques, while on the other half it was just terrible sporting behavior. You could almost make a portrait out of both sounds of the creek during that time and turn it into a famous painting. It was a profound image, a true look into PA's angling community!

 

[silverfox]

Since we're off on this tangent.

I discovered several years ago that the stocked trout swim downstream pretty quickly after stocking in my local STW. This river has a listed lower boundary and always has. So I like to target musky there after stocking as I figure they get turned on to the instant food source swimming around.

A few years ago I was musky fishing there between stocking and the trout season opener and a well meaning local decided to tell me what I was doing was illegal. I don't know why he thought I was trout fishing when I was slinging around a 12 inch long streamer on a 12wt, but I guess most folk aren't familiar with fly fishing in general to know that's not a good way to target trout. I just explained that the limit for the trout stocking is half a mile upstream and I'm fishing for musky.

I also had a PFBC WCO sit on the road and watch me with binoculars for a while. Not sure why. I was legally fishing. He never came and talked to me.

 

[redietz]

Also I like fishing below the red bridge, there's some good runs right there by the restrooms. Can't say I've ever had people being rude to me like they were to you but I did have a woman step on my Helios 3, luckily the rod went between a gap in the flip flops she was wearing so the rod was fine. I was still a bit irked about the situation and now never lay my fly rods down when rigging in an area with a lot of foot traffic.

To be fair, fly rods laid down are very hard to see. I've had people that I'm fishing with almost step on my rod before I hollered at them. I never lay a rod down on the ground anymore.