<\/p>\n
An angler displays a brown trout caught on the Little Juniata River in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
Will Parson\/Chesapeake Bay Program<\/p>\n
As a child in the 1980s, Jared Manning never missed opening day of trout season. Freeman Run in Potter County, PA, flowed through his town of Austin and about 100 feet from his back door. By 8 a.m., he and his family were dropping worms to lure the plentiful trout freshly stocked by the local anglers club and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission. \u201cYou could look up and down the stream in either direction and see dozens of people,\u201d he said. \u201cMostly families.\u201d<\/p>\n
As an adult, Manning developed a preference for chasing wild brook trout in remote streams. But he regularly returned to Freeman Run for the community, especially on opening day. Neighbors hosted cookouts. Often there was a chicken barbecue organized by the local church or Scout troop.<\/p>\n
But that changed in 2021, when the Fish and Boat Commission stopped stocking Freeman Run, Manning said. The agency\u2019s fish survey, conducted in 2018, had shown that it qualified as a Class A wild trout stream \u2014 meaning it had a sufficient biomass of the wild fish to support what the agency calls \u201ca long-term and rewarding fishery.\u201d Per state policy, Class A wild trout streams, with few exceptions, are not supposed to be stocked.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Anglers gathered for a fishing derby on Freeman Run in Austin, PA, in April 2018, three years before the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat\u00a0Commission stopped stocking the stream with brown trout. (Darwin Manning)<\/p>\n
Many conservationists and anglers champion this policy of prohibiting stocking in healthy streams where trout reproduce on their own. Stocking can increase the competition for food and habitat, so most research has shown that stocking has either negative or, at best, neutral effects on wild trout, said ecologist Shawn Rummel, a senior manager and science advisor for Trout Unlimited\u2019s Northeast Coldwater Habitat Program.<\/p>\n
But for many anglers accustomed to the bountiful harvest of stocked trout, there is simply no other way to fish. After stocking ended in Freeman Run, Manning said he was hard pressed to find anyone fishing there on opening day or any day.<\/p>\n
Now, the Fish and Boat Commission has made the controversial decision to stock a portion of Freeman Run again \u2014 as part of a five-year study that will test whether the agency can protect wild trout in a Class A stream by stocking it with rainbow trout and prohibiting anglers from harvesting brown and brook trout.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve not been shy about recognizing that there are negative impacts to wild trout populations when stocking occurs,\u201d said fisheries biologist Kris Kuhn, director of the commission\u2019s Bureau of Fisheries. \u201cThe question here is, can we mitigate those negative impacts?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Conservation dynamics<\/p>\n
By the 1800s, brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) \u2014 the only salmonids native to Pennsylvania streams \u2014 were in trouble. Pollution and stream disruption from the mining and lumber industries had caused the population to dwindle, along with other native fish. An 1870s report from the Pennsylvania Fish Commission noted<\/a>, \u201cThe large number of streams running through our state have become so depopulated of fishes by pollution and persistent wanton slaughter as to render them almost valueless to the people as a source of food.\u201d<\/p>\n An angler displays a brook trout.<\/p>\n Will Parson\/Chesapeake Bay Program<\/p>\n And so, the agency began stocking. In the 1880s it started releasing brown trout (Salmo trutta, native to Europe) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss, native to the western U.S.). Many other states also began stocking programs that continue to this day. Brown trout have been stocked in nearly every U.S. state<\/a>.<\/p>\n In Pennsylvania, brown trout naturalized widely, surviving in waters too warm or polluted for native brook trout. These wild brown trout fisheries are now a major draw for many anglers.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the \u201cbrookies,\u201d which are the state fish of Pennsylvania and several other states<\/a>, are still in decline. The main threats are the warming climate and floods that disrupt overwintering eggs, said fish biologist Nathaniel \u201cThan\u201d Hitt, formerly with the U.S. Geological Survey and now a senior scientist with the West Virginia Rivers Coalition.<\/p>\n But many\u00a0studies\u00a0have<\/a> demonstrated that the presence of brown trout can also reduce brook trout numbers. Hitt\u2019s research<\/a> suggests that brook trout are displaced by brown trout particularly in warmer waters where they could otherwise survive if not for the added competition.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Fish and Boat Commission, along with conservation organizations such as Trout Unlimited, has spent decades working to clean up polluted streams, in part to encourage the return of brook trout.<\/p>\n But often when waterways become healthy enough for brook trout, there is pressure to stock them \u201ceven though we did that work in order to get native fish, that maybe have been isolated up in the headwaters, to recolonize,\u201d said Rummel of Trout Unlimited.<\/p>\n This fishing season, the Fish and Boat Commission is stocking 3.2 million trout in Pennsylvania waters, including rainbow trout, brown trout, brook trout and golden rainbow trout. Another 1.1 million trout will be stocked by cooperative nurseries, hatcheries run by local organizations such as sportsmen\u2019s clubs, that raise trout provided by state hatcheries as fingerlings.<\/p>\n The vast majority of these fish will never see a Class A wild trout stream. The commission\u2019s 2025-2029 Strategic Plan for Management of Trout Fisheries notes that \u201cClass A waters contain the most abundant wild trout populations and, with rare exceptions, the [commission] manages these stream sections solely for the perpetuation of the wild trout fishery with no stocking.\u201d<\/p>\n Of the 1,316 stream sections designated as Class A, 14 are now stocked by the commission. Another 14 are stocked by other sponsors, such as cooperative nurseries, which typically stock once a season for events like fishing derbies. \u00a0<\/p>\n Freeman Run study<\/p>\n<\/p>\n