PFBC Voluntary Permits

[wildtrout2]

You told me you fish Mill Creek...

Maybe under my plan I'd have to rat you out.. 😉

I do, but it's an unstocked Natural Repo stream now, that gets no attention from the State. The closest I've gotten to fishing a stocked stream was when I fished the upper reaches of Kettle, and that was one time, a number of years ago.

Edit: I stand corrected, I have fished Hemlock Creek, which is stocked up to a certain point along it's length.

 

[wildtrout2]

Hey, Mike! When was the trout stamp implemented?

Back in 1991. It was $5.

 

[wildtrout2]

I fish Mill Creek, too! Wait, which Mill Creek are we talking about?

I doubt you fish MY Mill Creek in Montco. 🙂 It's the creek I caught my first trout on back in the 70's, when it got stocked. Also, the creek I caught my first trout on a fly.

 

[Cznymph]

Anglers who are not old enough or weren’t tuned in enough to recall may not realize that when the trout stamp was created, it wasn’t created to entirely pay for the trout stocking program or enhance the program by paying for more or larger fish. A portion of the regular license receipts was still going to be used for the program and without the stamp growing expense would likely have cut more deeply into funds for other programs.

They also used to feed the fish discarded cattle entrails purchased for next to nothing. Now they feed formulated feed trucked from halfway across the country.

The cost of raising these fish has skyrocketed since the inception of the trout stamp and the trout stocking program now takes more and more from the general licenses sales kitty than ever before.

They used to post the cost of each fish from the respective hatcheries on the hatchery page on the PFBC website. Wonder why they don’t do that anymore.

 

[Jessed]

So stopping trout stockings in marginal waters every spring/ fall is going to help wild trout populations in Pennsylvania? That state has 13 million residents.. is all that angling pressure suppose to just flow to class A streams?

 

[jifigz]

I don't understand the point of having this on going debate on here regarding stocking and the evils that it represents.

They will either continue to fund it without have the monies, just like practically everything else the government does these days.

Or the budget will eventually cause it to collapse and it will be no more, which would be an event many of us would feel satisfied with.

Yeah, stocking isn't great, but we've already made a ton of improvements as far as stocking over wild fish. We have cut it down drastically. Do we have more improvements to make? Yes, but stocked trout do mean a lot to certain people, and they do have high recreational value to certain people. Yes, stocking impacts certain species that call these streams home. So does dang near everything else we as people do in modern society.

No matter what, not everyone will be happy. For one, I think we have it pretty good. I have brook trout nearby me that aren't stocked over, and I have wild brown trout nearby that aren't stocked over, and I have stockies nearby if I want to catch them, along with a myriad of other fish species.

 

[wildtrout2]

So stopping trout stockings in marginal waters every spring/ fall is going to help wild trout populations in Pennsylvania? That state has 13 million residents.. is all that angling pressure suppose to just flow to class A streams?

IMO I think a lot of them would just stop fishing for trout, instead of going the "extra mile" to fish for wild trout on Class A streams.

 

[Cznymph]

So stopping trout stockings in marginal waters every spring/ fall is going to help wild trout populations in Pennsylvania? That state has 13 million residents.. is all that angling pressure suppose to just flow to class A streams?

I have a hunch that the majority of stocked trout anglers, many of whom have grown accustomed to being told the exact date and time to meet the truck full of fish, will not make the transition to wild trout fishing.

 

[Bamboozle]

You know there are plenty of valuable gamefish in those “marginal” waters, right? I just don’t like paying money for the government to actively screw up something I enjoy...

It might seem like hearsay to you but there are LOT of people that want to catch TROUT in those marginal waters regardless of their origin, not OTHER gamefish regardless of whether YOU enjoy them or you think that only what you desire is relative...

Way back when in Delco when I first started fishing, I was one of those anglers...

 

[jifigz]

Real fishermen keep fishing for whatever they can practically around the calendar. Most fisherman, and the majority of license purchasers, pursue stocked trout as a tradition, social bonding experience, and/or other reason for about a month, and then they hang up their rods.

The above is 100% my opinion and is no way rooted in deep research. I formulated that opinion after a lifetime of being an avid angler and observing others' habits.

 

[wildtrout2]

Most fisherman, and the majority of license purchasers, pursue stocked trout as a tradition, social bonding experience, and/or other reason for about a month, and then they hang up their rods.

I agree. And, it might even be less than a month for many of them.

 

[Swattie87]

I agree. And, it might even be less than a month for many of them.

“It’s Trout season until it’s Turkey season.” That’s the mentality of everyone in our hunting camp, except me. So yeah, about a month.

And this coincides with what I’ve observed anecdotally. About 5/1 the pressure on the stocked streams starts to wane. By 6/1, it’s just the year round Trout anglers left. I generally avoid STW’s, even the good ones I like with strong wild populations, until after Memorial Day weekend most years.

 

[Jessed]

I have a hunch that the majority of stocked trout anglers, many of whom have grown accustomed to being told the exact date and time to meet the truck full of fish, will not make the transition to wild trout fishing.

I will agree a lot of the opening day guys wouldn’t fish class a waters, but the fly guys and the bait guys who fish deep in the season definitely do already. The same website they use to find out when and where the fish will be dumped also shows an exact map of class A waters. Class A water would see at least a 2x pressure increase from Fly anglers alone.

 

[Mike]

The cost of raising these fish has skyrocketed since the inception of the trout stamp and the trout stocking program now takes more and more from the general licenses sales kitty than ever before.

I would not necessarily agree with that on a relative basis. I suspect that the rise in the price per pound of adult trout may generally be following inflation.

I think there’s often room for efficiency improvements in government programs, however, as a way to cut costs to at least some very limited extent….in this case starting with dropping stream sections and lakes with documented poor/low angler use from the stocking program. There are possibly higher use waters that are understocked in Pa based on these same counts and perhaps new waters that could be added to the program as more riparian areas become public in developed regions.

 

[Cznymph]

I would not necessarily agree with that. I started with a date (year) of known cost per adult trout and referenced readily available cumulative USA inflation data. By my calculation combined with a few seasons of estimations the trout price per adult trout has either followed inflation or stayed a bit below inflation.

You’re not going to show your work?

Where did you source the figure for the cost of the trout?

Have the cost of fishing licenses kept of with inflation? What about the trout stamp?

Is the PFBC still operating with the same profit margin?

Fish are bigger now than they were, are you calculating cost as a per fish or per weight?

The state is holding over more fish to stock in recent years, is this number reflected in your calculations? Are you accounting for the second and sometimes third year this fish are held over?

 

[5footfenwick]

I do, but it's an unstocked Natural Repo stream now, that gets no attention from the State. The closest I've gotten to fishing a stocked stream was when I fished the upper reaches of Kettle, and that was one time, a number of years ago.

Edit: I stand corrected, I have fished Hemlock Creek, which is stocked up to a certain point along it's length.

If wild trout exist, and they happen to stock it, I think you can still say you are fishing for wild trout. No shame in that game 😉

~5footfenwick

 

[Mike]

You’re not going to show your work?

Where did you source the figure for the cost of the trout?

Have the cost of fishing licenses kept of with inflation? What about the trout stamp?

Is the PFBC still operating with the same profit margin?

Fish are bigger now than they were, are you calculating cost as a per fish or per weight?

The state is holding over more fish to stock in recent years, is this number reflected in your calculations? Are you accounting for the second and sometimes third year this fish are held over?

Note that I changed my comment in #54 to be more generalized. You’re right; it should be based on lbs of trout because the numbers were reduced to improve the avg length to 11 inches.

Post #38 addresses the original trout stamp purpose and relates somewhat to the observation below.

the stocked trout program drives part of the statewide general license sales. Since other programs are supported in part by the license sales generated by stocked trout angling, my view is the value of the stocked trout program goes well beyond the program itself.

 

[Bamboozle]

IMO I think a lot of them would just stop fishing for trout, instead of going the "extra mile" to fish for wild trout on Class A streams.

Definitely...

When I started fishing for trout as a yoot, nobody in my family fished and I didn't have a driver's license or a car nor did any of my fishing friends. Excluding the THREE times a friend's parent provided transportation, for the most part we relied on public transportation & hitch hiking to get to the handful of stocked streams available via those means in Delaware, Chester & Philadelphia Counties.

In addition, living in suburban Philly I knew a LOT of fishermen who did 95% of their fishing "down the shore." You would never see those guys fishing for sunnies or bass at a creek or the local reservoir but you'd see them on Ridley Creek on Opening Day, sometimes using a surf or boat rod (seriously) the first time and suitable gear later when they decided trout fishing was OK.

I didn't know much or care about wild trout in those days and never expected I ever catch one because I had no way to get to the places where they lived. Hindsight is 20-20 but I have a feeling without being able to "trout fish" at those stocked streams, I would have never bothered with trout or started fly fishing and developed the passion I have today.

Today, a Class A runs through my property and I live in an area with tons of wild trout streams. I fish those and others almost exclusively however, the wonderful magical memories of fishing those local stocked streams as a kid draws me back annually to the one where I caught my first trout.

I can't explain the special smile that's on my face when I fish that "crick" once or twice every season, but I'm glad it and others like it are still out there for me and others to enjoy.

 

[wildtrout2]

Definitely...

When I started fishing for trout as a yoot, nobody in my family fished and I didn't have a driver's license or a car nor did any of my fishing friends. Excluding the THREE times a friend's parent provided transportation, for the most part we relied on public transportation & hitch hiking to get to the handful of stocked streams available via those means in Delaware, Chester & Philadelphia Counties.

In addition, living in suburban Philly I knew a LOT of fishermen who did 95% of their fishing "down the shore." You would never see those guys fishing for sunnies or bass at a creek or the local reservoir but you'd see them on Ridley Creek on Opening Day, sometimes using a surf or boat rod (seriously) the first time and suitable gear later when they decided trout fishing was OK.

I didn't know much or care about wild trout in those days and never expected I ever catch one because I had no way to get to the places where they lived. Hindsight is 20-20 but I have a feeling without being able to "trout fish" at those stocked streams, I would have never bothered with trout or started fly fishing and developed the passion I have today.

Today, a Class A runs through my property and I live in an area with tons of wild trout streams. I fish those and others almost exclusively however, the wonderful magical memories of fishing those local stocked streams as a kid draws me back annually to the one where I caught my first trout.

I can't explain the special smile that's on my face when I fish that "crick" once or twice every season, but I'm glad it and others like it are still out there for me and others to enjoy.

Great post! It reminds me of my same EXACT situation when I first started fishing Mill Creek back in the early 70's, when it was a stocked stream. Me and my one buddy used to ride our bikes down (we lived very close) to the "crick" to fish on a regular basis, for years, until we could drive. Then, we learned about wild trout and started fishing for them pretty much exclusively.

It's ironic, that it hasn't been stocked for a good many years now, but I caught one of my PB wild trout from there just two years ago. I love looking back on the good ole days. And yes, had it not been for stocked trout, I'd never be where I am today as a trout fisherman, even though I only pursue wild trout now.

I've shown this pic before, but I wanted to share it again here, because it shows my fishing buddy (he's on the right, I'm on the left) that I mentioned. He passed four years ago at 63. I miss him badly. He caught the wild brown in the pic.

 

[nymphingmaniac]

I have a hunch that the majority of stocked trout anglers, many of whom have grown accustomed to being told the exact date and time to meet the truck full of fish, will not make the transition to wild trout fishing.

maybe. But some will. My concern is that it will kill the pipeline of future fishermen and women. I started out fishing for stocked trout, and, oh no!, bait fishing. Transitioned to spinners, spinners and flies and then all flies. Some might applaud the short term reduced competition, but it will ultimately undercut the sport. Why would a politician be wrong to say "why support this when very few of my constituents participate"?