http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09249/995758-358.stm

This sounds ominous.  Every year as of late the situation seems to be getting worse and worse.  

I like the idea of more fingerlings.  But yeah it sounds like more fish near the populated areas and less in our neck of the woods.  We will see maybe they will make some good decisions.

Thanks for sharing that article..

I like the fingerling idea ...

and it would be nice if they could make wild streams more accessible too....

more catch and release would get more "BANG FOR THE BUCK" too, but too many guys figure they buy a license to catch and eat TROUT...  

--Last edited by Dr Trout on 2009-09-10 10:27:20 --

yeah but the catch and eat crowd that only fishes the first couple weeks make up a large part of the license sales.  

As far as making wild streams more accessible that is tuff one adding roadways and parking lots causes silt and such that can ruin some of the native and wild trout streams.  I would love to see how fingerlings would do in Redbank or Sandy Lick they both have been holding over some nice trout the last few years.

redbank would be a good test..

not sure about sandy lick..

I am not so sure that water is that great...  

I know I would not eat a trout from there...  

I'd like to see the in-season stocking later in the year maybe mid-June instead of being  basically done stocking by June 1st...  

--Last edited by Dr Trout on 2009-09-10 11:18:59 --

Sandy Lick From about Iowa Bridge to Brookville is really a nice stream.  It has some of the better hatches in the area and it is not fished hard at all.  Access is a problem.

Don't get me wrong.. I used to love fishing Sandy Lick... just to many local told me too many stories and as a result would not eat the fish in it.. but yes it is a great stream to fish,....

yeah the upper end is pretty nasty and i can see the concern but then I would never eat anything out of the Clarion myself after see what the Paper mills dumps in there.

 I only keep one or two trout from the Clarion and so far I'm still kickin'  

Love the fingerling ideas - I think a lot of the streams in your neck of the woods would work out great.  Spring Creek is one that comes to mind.  Imagine if they removed it from the adult stocking list for a couple years and put only fingerlings in there.

I think it could be tremendous, but gets too much pressure with the truck chasers.

And what does it hurt to try a couple streams as an experiment?  The rest of the adult trout stocked streams could keep the same allocations.

Spring Creek would be a cool one to try with fingerlings.  I have never fished it much and when I have fished it they had not stocked it for a couple weeks and there was not much in the way of fish left.

The big problem is the 3 to 4 years it takes for the streams stocked with fingerlings to start fishing well for nice size trout.  I think that would turn a lot of the meat hunters off.

I only have two requests:

1. You can lower the limit down from five if you want to but at least give me the ability to keep one fish per trip.  If I catch a lunker I want to have the option of keeping it.  I doubt they'll lower the limit though. A lot of guys would quit buying a license.

2. Allow me to keep fishing with bait.  Fly fishing isn't for everyone.  I'm a bait dunker through and through.

I'm with you flyfisher.  I'm concerned that the more populated areas will get the bulk of the fish and some nice streams around here will be left out in the cold.  There are already nice streams around here that I feel are understocked.

You guys up north have the best streams with the lowest population areas - thus the reason for less stockings.  We have pretty much have put and take waters down here, but we have the population areas, so we get the heavier stockings.

License $$$ will always dictate the stocking program.  Need to get the most bang for the buck with the limited resources available.

Personally, I would love to see a year-round season, catch and release artificials only on all streams from March 1 until May 1, then open regulations.  Think how many times you could catch these stockies if you could catch and release on all waters for 2 months.  

Never going to happen - PFBC needs an opening day to sell licenses, and they need to stuff the streams for that day with fish for people to catch.

I don't think you have to worry about them outlawing bait that won't ever happen.  That would be 90% of the lisc sales gone.  

My pitch for the fish not going to the populated areas it this.  A lot of the guys that live in that area come up north to fish anyway since we have more and better streams to fish.  I really think they should concentrate on where the stocking has a greater economic impact with tourist and such.

I was jumping up and down last year when they toyed with the idea of two opening days statewide - North and South.  We were going to be in the south, and open two weeks earlier like the SE region.  

Fish opening day here, then head to camp for that opening day.  Talk about the boom for tourism in the northern counties...

I really think they should include the Pittsburgh area in the early opener the trout fishing only lasted till about may 20th when i lived down there for a couple years.