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Updated: April 3, 2022 @ 9:52 am
Meadville, PA
Are you ready for trout season?
Pennsylvania’s streams are stocked and waiting for the masses to start casting lines at 8 a.m. today.
This year is going to be different than any other in history, honestly.
For starters, we are going back to a single opening day across the state.
Since 2007, we’ve had one opener for 18 counties in the Southeast, and another two weeks later for the rest of Pennsylvania.
But the opener outside those 18 counties was timed the past 15 years to coincide with the traditional Pennsylvania opener on the first Saturday after April 11.
That’s when Pennsylvania opened trout season for decades.
This year, that would have been April 16.
Instead, it’s two weeks earlier, which could make for some interesting fishing conditions in some parts of the state, including Crawford County.
Some areas of the northern tier are predicted to have temperatures well below freezing every night through opening day. In Crawford County, temperatures are expected to be around 30 degrees at 8 a.m. today.
So, if you’re heading to the mountains to fish the opener, or even in the area, layer up.
The PFBC has allocated 3.2 million adult trout reared in its hatcheries for the 696 streams and 128 lakes open to public trout fishing this year. Another 1 million should be contributed by cooperative nurseries.
Among the PFBC trout, you’ll find 2.2 million rainbows, 686,000 brown trout and 293,000 brook trout. The average size of those trout is 11 inches long, with an average weight of just over half a pound.
There will be plenty of trophy fish stocked this year as well.
About 70,000 brood fish are planned for stocking this year. These are 2.5- to 3.5-year-old trout measuring 14-20 inches long.
About 70 percent of these fish were stocked ahead of opening day, with the rest planned for stocking after April 2.
Additionally, about 13,000 golden rainbows should be stocked across Pennsylvania this year. These fish weigh an average of 1.5 pounds, or about three times the heft of the average stocked trout.
The PFBC said it would stock 80,000 of these brightly-colored fish before April 2, and the rest afterward.
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