The Luck of the Fisherman
March 30th will kick off another trout season in Pennsylvania. The official start of the hunting and fishing year after the cold lull of February and March puts us to sleep. The 30th will be the mentored youth day only, on April 6th, us big kids can get after them ourselves without guilt.
Upon checking out this year’s regulations, it was refreshing to see that the Commission seemed to be content with its previous year’s regulations and did little tweaking of the book. The noticeable change affecting the Big Woods is crawfish heads must be removed behind the eyes if being harvested from the creek but not for fishing on the same water. There were also some tweaks to the stocked streams in the area, namely Clear Creek will receive an in-season stocking this year as well as some other small changes on area streams.
Trout season is no longer new but it is not ancient either. The Fish Commission, now the Fish and Boat Commission, was initiated in Pennsylvania in 1866 making it the second oldest conservation agency in the United States, behind New York’s Central Park. It is the first state wildlife agency in the country. Things progressed rapidly after the inception of the Commission. It was deemed that an agency was needed because at the beginning of the
Civil War, the number one industry was commercial fishing. By the end of the civil war and after years of industry growth and deforestation, the waterways of the Commonwealth had been degraded to where action was taken and an agency was born. It may be surprising to some, but their first mission was not to restore trout but to restore the shad fisheries. However, the focus did not take long to turn to the speckled fish.
In short order, the stocking of trout in PA began sometime in the 1870s. Individuals and Commission employees would procure trout from other states and ship them out, stocking them wherever they could get to the water. The fingerling fish mostly traveled in milk containers by train and then were handed out to wagons to be placed into creeks.
In 1875, the Commission procured nine acres and started its first hatchery in Corry, PA. It was not all about trout though. In the early 1990s, the agency put out 10.2 million chain pickerel which they called “southern pike” in a nice marketing maneuver and, get this, 90,000 frogs!
In an act that could be considered putting the cart before the horse, the Commonwealth made it illegal to dump material hazardous to fish waters in 1909. It is hard to believe it was ever allowed though. This new pollution enforcement job was given to the Fish and Boat Commission.
Not until 1921 was a fishing license required and originally, they made it so the legal fishing age was 20 years old but they quickly revised the regulations to allow children to fish without a license. The fee was $1.00.
In 1922, the first creel limit for trout was introduced at 25 trout a day! From the 1881 Titusville Herald, there is a news article, “The Luck of the Fisherman: “William Vansyeko, had a haul of 110 trout up Killnall Creek a week ago. He has not used the fly as of yet…”. With hauls like that, I am sure that 25 fish was considered very restrictive!
On Aug 25th, 1921, William Shoemaker
became the first Fish Warden to be killed in the line of duty while apprehending two anglers who were illegally spearing. William Shoemaker Jr., a deputy at the time, apprehended the shooter and the second man turned himself in. The criminals received manslaughter sentences.
All in all, the stocking program in Pennsylvania, while having gone through many changes has been very successful. It is hard to put into a page or two the work, coordination, and effort that goes into the task taken on annually by