Fish and Boat Commission spawning bass experiment

BY BOB FRYE

License prices and marketing

The risk is low, the reward possibly high.

That's the thinking behind the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission's new marketing campaign.

The commission is allowing certain anglers to buy 2016 fishing licenses for half the price through the end of the year. State residents can buy an annual license for $12.40, while nonresidents can get one for $27.40 and senior residents for $6.90.

Those prices don't include a trout or Lake Erie stamp.

The commission has typically sold 99.65 percent of all the licenses it's going to in a calendar year by Oct.1, said Steve Kralik, director of its bureau of outreach, education and marketing. So even if the incentive doesn't convince anyone to buy a license, the commission will lose no more than $48,000.

The hope, though, is that it will attract newcomers or bring lapsed anglers back, he said.

Commissioner Bill Sabatose of Elk County sees potential in the effort, especially in terms of attracting people to fish for steelhead.

“If this is marketed right, you might pick up quite a few,” he said.

Commissioner Ed Mascharka of Erie County said it might especially appeal to non-residents. Those people might not travel to Erie at full price when there are no guarantees with weather and fish numbers. But, he added, if they see the trip as a bargain, that's different.

“You may just see a huge, significant number,” Mascharka said.

Commission executive director John Arway said the “sale” is one of the ideas generated by the team of Penn State business students developing a business plan for the commission. In fact, Arway added, they recommended the commission — like a retailer switching gears with the seasons — “clear the shelves” even earlier going forward.

The commission's most avid fishermen buy their licenses early, before opening day of trout season, Arway said. To keep more casual anglers involved, the thinking is it might pay to reduce prices by one percentage going into summer, then by another going into fall.

“This is all about taking advantage of how our customer dynamics look,” Arway said.

Commissioner Rocco Ali said he likes the idea of “staging down” license fees throughout the year, so long as the commission wasn't going to lose money.

“But that may be a way to build numbers,” Ali said.

A decision made this past week may change the future of Pennsylvania fishing.

Next spring, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission is going to allow the state's organized bass anglers to hold a tournament or two on an inland lake during the bass spawn. If all goes well, the commission indicated, such events could become a regular part of the state's fishing scene.

That's a departure from existing rules.

Right now, springtime bass fishing — from April 16 through June 17 this year — is OK only on a catch-and-immediate-release basis, with no tournaments permitted.

That's meant to protect fish guarding eggs.

Andy Shiels, chief of the commission's bureau of fisheries, said some research shows that removing bass from nests on northern lakes leads to almost immediate predation by bluegills, rock bass and the like.

“I think our biggest concern as biologists, on the science side, would be removing those fish from their nests,” Shiels said.

Pennsylvania's ban on spring tournaments long has existed, with one notable exception. They are allowed on Pymatuning Lake, which straddles the Pennsylvania-Ohio border. No one with the Fish and Boat Commission or Ohio Division of Wildlife, which co-manage the lake, has suggested the fishery is suffering as a result.

Bass anglers have noticed.

“It gets hammered with fishing pressure, and still it just keeps getting better as a bass fishery,” said Ben Bilott of North Huntingdon, president of PA BASS Nation. “We're not sure how well a fishery is doing is really related to when fishing is occurring.”

Ohio fisheries officials agree.

Matt Wolfe, a biologist with the Division of Wildlife, said that agency allows bass tournaments during the spawn — on Pymatuning and all of its inland lakes — because they seem to cause no ill effects to bass on a population-level scale.

“It might seem like a lot of fish when you have a 100-boat field and each of them brings in six bass. OK, that's 600 bass,” Wolfe said. “But that's a drop in the bucket compared to how many spawning bass there might be in a population.

“From our standpoint, we don't see any implications.”

There's an economic side, too, said Josh Giran, vice president of PA BASS Nation. Right now, that organization travels out of state to hold springtime tournaments. Giran said competitors spend about $560 each, not counting fuel. Given the size of the typical field, he said that's putting $40,000 per event into the hands of others.

“I'd really like to keep it here in the state of Pennsylvania,” Giran said.

Fish and Boat Commissioners apparently agree. They directed agency staff to develop rules allowing springtime tournaments next year.

What form they'll take, where they might be held and how many would be allowed have yet to be determined.

Anglers may have to make concessions early on, however.

Shiels said staff is leaning toward requiring anglers to make any spawn season tournaments catch, photo and release events. That means competitors would have to weigh or measure fish right where they were caught, then immediately release them into the water rather than run them to a weigh-in station.

That's how most kayak bass tournaments are run these days, he said.

“I think that's the way of the future anyway,” Shiels said.

Such a rule probably would force a group like PA BASS Nation to run a springtime tournament as a benefit event rather than a qualifier, Bilott said.

“When there's money on the line, you can't allow for the chance of someone cheating, or even the perception that someone might be able to cheat,” he said.

But the group might be willing to start out that way to get this idea rolling, he added.

The commission's intent is not to allow unlimited bass fishing by all anglers during the spawn, board president Glade Squires said. It's looking to try this with just a few registered tournaments on some of the state's bigger lakes, like perhaps Raystown, as an experiment in cooperation with competitive anglers.

“I think there are ways we can work with them,” he said.

Bob Frye is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at bfrye@tribweb.com or via@bobfryeoutdoors.

Opportunities abound on Pittsburgh's 3 rivers

Bob Frye, Pittsburgh Tribune Review

Your local hardware store may be the best place to shop for plywood and screws, but you wouldn't go there for office supplies. The pie shop is great for baked goods, not so hot for auto parts.

It's the same with Pittsburgh's three rivers.

The Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio all hold good numbers of game fish. But some are better than others for certain species.

That's the situation right now anyway, based on survey work done by biologists from the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.

They examined the fisheries in the tailwaters of lock 3 on the Allegheny at Harmarville, lock 4 on the Monongahela at Charleroi and the Montgomery lock on the Ohio, down river from Beaver. All three locations held smallmouth bass, walleyes and sauger.

Where you might want to go, though, depends on whether you want to catch lots of smaller fish or a few bigger ones.

The Allegheny, for example, produced 121 smallmouths, more by far than the Ohio's 70 or the Monongahela's 53. But just 21 of those Allegheny smallmouths — one in six — were legal-sized. On the Monongahela and Ohio, one of every two bass checked were more than 12 inches.

The situation with walleyes showed similar variation.

“Remarkably, a greater-than-average number of legal length walleye were collected at all three lock and dam sites,” said Bob Ventorini, the commission's three rivers biologist, wrote in a report of the survey.

But catch rates exceeded two fish per hour — the minimum for a water to qualify as a good walleye fishery, according to the state's management plan — on only the Allegheny and Ohio.

The Allegheny further separated itself when it comes to sheer numbers. Biologists collected 26 walleyes at lock 3, compared with 12 from the Monongahela and eight from the Ohio.

The situation is somewhat reversed when it comes to sauger.

Catch rates of legal-sized fish — those 12 inches and up — were well above average on the Allegheny, compared with average on the Monongahela and Ohio, so that's where you'd go for keepers.

But if you just want lots of action? Then the Ohio River is your place. Biologists collected 122 sauger total below Montgomery, compared with 46 below lock 3 and 36 below lock 4.

When it comes to white bass, the number seen by biologists were “not remarkable” on either the Allegheny or Monongahela, Ventorini said. But enough were seen on the Ohio to exceed the long-term mean and “some of these were really nice fish,” Ventorini added.

The largest reached 15 inches, he said.

The Monongahela, though, is the place to go if you want to catch hard-fighting drum.

Biologists saw about three times as many there as on the Allegheny, and 10 times as many as on the Ohio. The biggest on the Monongahela stretched 19 inches, though the other two rivers did give up drum of 21 inches.

So where to go and what to seek?

That's up to you to decide, mixing and matching to make some fun

Here is a link to the complete study!

PA State Parks Offer Opportunities To Camp Where Bass Are Plentiful

By Bob Frye, Pittsburgh Tribune Review

What's better than a day spent fishing?

Why, two days spent fishing, of course. Any angler who's ever muttered the phrase, “OK, one more cast,” when told it was time to leave the water knows that.

The good news is that with bass season set to open statewide Saturday — anglers will be allowed to harvest six largemouths, smallmouths or spotteds, combined — there's a way to extend your fishing on waters with good numbers of fish.

A number of the region's most productive bass waters are located within or adjacent to state parks where you can spend the night. Moraine, Yellow Creek, Pymatuning, Raccoon Creek, Keystone and Laurel Hill state parks all offer camping around lakes known to hold good populations of bass. Cook Forest and Clear Creek state parks offer access to smallmouth bass on the Clarion River, while Ohiopyle puts you near smallmouth on the Yough and Casselman.

All get their share of campers.

About 160,000 people spent more than 400,000 nights camping in state parks last year, said Department of Conservation and Natural Resources spokesman Terry Brady. In region 2, which takes in the western quarter of Pennsylvania, more than 40,000 people spent about 104,000 nights under the stars.

“Once school's out, most of our campsites, cottages, yurts and cabins are at or near capacity on weekends,” said Kris Baker, manager of Keystone State Park in Westmoreland County.

Which park is best for you depends on what experience you're looking for and just how far you're willing to go to “rough it.”

Some parks accommodate only tents and recreational vehicles. Some have only cabins, cottages and/or yurts. Some have everything.

The Crawford County-based Pymatuning — which accounted for about 25 percent of all camp nights in Western Pennsylvania parks last year — is one of those with traditional camp sites for tents and RVs. Some are on the lake shore, some are in grassy areas and some are in the woods. Cost per night ranges from $19 to $32 per site, based on a variety of factors.

Often, campers choose their site based not so much on cost as the chance to take along everyone in the “family.”

“The electric, pet-friendly sites are the first to go,” said Jason Baker, assistant park manager at Pymatuning. “They're the most expensive, but they're the first to go.”

Sixteen other parks, including Keystone, get tent campers participating in the system's “first-time camper” program. Under its guidelines, people new to sleeping out can rent a site that comes with a tent, sleeping pads, camp chairs, flashlights, lantern, camp stove, and hot dog and marshmallow cookers, among other things, for $20 per night.

Park rangers sometimes help first-timers erect their tents and get started. But as a general rule, most prefer to go it alone, Baker said.

“A lot of people seem to want to experience things on their own. That seems to be part of the appeal of it all,” he said.

The park system's modern cabins, yurts and cottages all offer something different. The cabins are the most home-like, offering indoor bathrooms and showers, appliances, including microwaves, and other comforts. Campers need to bring only their own bedding and cookware.

Yurts and cottages are a step down but hardly primitive.

“They provide sort of a continuum for people not interested in tent camping but who want something a little more rustic than a modern cabin,” said Ken Bisbee, manager of Yellow Creek State Park in Indiana County.

Yurts are round, Mongolian-style canvas tents stretched around wooden frames. There's no indoor plumbing, but they do have stoves, refrigerators and more.

“People love them,” Bisbee said. “You think you're walking into a tent, but they have hardwood floors, doors, countertops, a stove top. They're kind of a neat thing.”

Cottages are like large, fancy one-room sheds. They have heat, bunkbeds, sometimes a table and chairs, and have covered porches, but you have to cook outside.

How long you can or must stay varies by camping option. Modern cabins have to be rented for a week at a time in summer; cottages and yurts usually have a two-night minimum. Tent and RV sites can be rented for as little as one night.

The maximum stay is one week in some cases, two in others.

So even when it comes to combining camping and fishing, you'll have to go home sometime.

But there are sure worse ways to spend time — such as Father's Day weekend — than camping out and fishing for bass.

“I can't think of a better way for grandfathers and fathers to spend their weekend than outside fishing with their sons, daughters and grandkids,” said John Arway, executive director of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.

3 and 5 Year Fishing Licenses Now Available In Pennsylvania

For more information go to www.gonefishingpa.com

No more mining at Hereford Manor, but possible changes in boat registration

By Bob Frye

Mining for coal at the site of the former Hereford Manor lakes? Not going to happen. But a change in how boaters register their crafts? That's a maybe.

Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission officials have been looking at both ideas.

The Hereford Manor property in Beaver County was once home to two lakes, both of which initially came to be in the 1950s as a result of a mining operation. In time, the commission took them over. Combined they generated more fishing trips for stocked trout than any other water in the state.

But both waters had to be drained more than a year ago because their dams no longer met safety standards.

The cost of replacing them with one lake has been estimated at $12 million to $15 million. That's money commission officials have said they don't have.

Recently, they had a couple of coal mining companies examine the property to see if there was enough coal left to harvest.

“One thought was to look into further mining the property and, in the process, have the safety issue of some remaining high walls remediated or addressed while perhaps also generating funding to help replace the dams at some point,” said Brian Barner, deputy director of the commission.

The idea didn't pan out. Both companies that assessed the site determined there's not enough coal remaining to make mining profitable, Barner said.

“Therefore, we will not be mining coal at Hereford Manor,” he added.

The commission is looking into the idea of transferring the job of registering boats to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, however.

There are about 350,000 registered boats in Pennsylvania. The commission re-registers about half of them each year. It also handles up to 50,000 transfers — where one boater sells his craft to another — a year.

All told it costs the agency about $1 million to do that work annually.

That's all a fraction of the work PennDOT does. In 2011, the agency registered about 11.5 million vehicles, including about 7.9 million passenger vehicles, according to its 2012 fact book.

Whether it can or should take on boats is a discussion that's ongoing, said PennDOT spokeswoman Erin Waters-Trasatt.

“There's been no final decision. But we are exploring the options to see what advantages there might be to partnering with the Fish and Boat Commission,” she said.

Barner said the commission is hoping to have a plan in place by year's end

Best Fish Populations On The Three Rivers Identified

By Bob Frye Pittsburgh Tribune Review

When the world’s top bass fishing pros descended on Pittsburgh for the Bassmaster Classic and Forrest Wood Cup, they spent a lot of time trying to figure out where the best fishing was located. Now, that information is at hand.

Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission biologists have, for the past 25 years, been sampling fish populations in the tailwaters below the various locks and dams on Pittsburgh’s three rivers. There’s been a special emphasis on the “big three:” smallmouth bass, walleye and sauger. This year, the commission took the data it collected over the past year and put together a list of hot spots.

If you want to target smallmouth bass, for example, three rivers biologist Bob Ventorini recommends the areas below Dashields dam on the Ohio River, the Grays Landing dam on the Monongahela and lock 2 near Highland Park on the Allegheny. Those sites had the highest abundance of bass on each river.

Of those, Grays Landing looks really good, he said in a report of his findings.

“The catch rate of legal (12 inches or larger) smallmouth bass at Grays Landing was remarkable, one of the highest catch rates on record for legal-sized smallmouth bass on the Three Rivers,” Ventorini wrote.

If you want to target walleyes, he recommends the areas below the Dashields and Emsworth dams on the Ohio. It was at Emsworth where biologists handled the biggest walleye caught in their surveys, a 31-inch, 10-pound, 5-ounce bruiser. That area also gave up about twice as many legal walleyes per hour as is called for in a quality fishery, according to the commission’s walleye management plan.

For sauger, all of the rivers are equally good, Ventorini wrote, though the Monongahela has been the most productive in the entire state over the past 25 years. There are other species besides the big three swimming in Pittsburgh’s rivers, of course, and biologists collect some — freshwater drum, rock bass and white bass — in abundance. For that reason, and because they can provide lots of recreation, Ventorini also identified hot spots for those.

The Emsworth pool on the Ohio and Elizabeth pool on the Monongahela are loaded with freshwater drum, he said. He recommended anglers use crayfish to catch them. The Elizabeth pool is a good place to target rock bass, he added, and the Dashields pool is good for white bass.

Next year, biologists plan to sample some new sites — the Montgomery lock on the Ohio, the Charleroi lock on the Monongahela and the Natrona lock on the Allegheny.

Will those reveal some new hot spots? It will be interesting to see.

New Pa. Law May Give The Fish & Boat Commission More Financial Control

By John Hayes / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In April, John Arway was crossing his fingers. The executive director of the state Fish and Boat Commission was waiting to see if a 20 percent increase in fishing license sales (compared to figures from the same period in 2011) was a real reflection of licenses sold or a statistical anomaly caused by anglers buying licenses early to fish Early Season Trout-Stocked Waters during the warm weeks of late winter.

With bass season opening June 16, Pennsylvania fishing license

sales are up, continuing a trend that started in the spring.

Above, Fish and Boat Commission executive director John Arway

with a nice largemouth

A 20 percent increase in license sales would add more than $3 million to the agency's coffers, and a new law passed last week could help the agency to further boost license sales.

Sales reports have been consistently good since April. Through June 4, anglers purchased 683,031 licenses, or 67,389 more than at the same time last year. A few days later, Arway said sales and fees were up 16 percent.

Ca-ching! That's about $3.3 million in revenue increases for a small state agency funded almost entirely by the anglers who use its services. "That's the good news," said Arway, who grew up in North Huntingdon and Cranberry. "The bad news is expenses are up and almost all other revenues are down."

Last year, Arway spent about $52 million of the agency's $60 million annual budget, holding the rest in reserve for a rainy day. About 80 percent of the budget is spent on personnel.

About 67 percent of Fish and Boat's revenue is raised through license and permit fees. No money for fisheries management is routed from the state's general fund.

Additional funding comes from a federal excise tax on fishing-related equipment and motor fuel sales (see Scott Shalaway's "Wildlife" column). Arway said the state's Dingell-Johnson Act funding is down $1.3 million compared to last year, and increased apportionment due to 2012's increased license sales won't be seen until 2013.

Fish and Boat makes money from leases on timber and mineral rights, including Marcellus Shale gas, on agency-owned properties. But Arway said it's a proverbial drop in the bucket.

"We don't have as much property as the Game Commission," he said. "We have 44,000 acres, mostly boat launches and properties around lakes. I think we've had one sale of timber. We're making efforts to market shale gas on some of our properties, but it's not anywhere near the extraction phase. We have not withdrawn any gas. There have been no royalty payments yet."

Arway said the agency can't rely on income from resource leases to meet its wildlife management expenses. "It was estimated that if we owned all the mineral rights on our properties -- and we're not sure if we own them -- we'd bring in over $50 million in 20 years," he said. "But that's not nearly enough to meet our obligations. We have a $120 million need just to fix our high-hazard dams that have been closed."

The 16 Fish and Boat-managed dams closed by the state Department of Environmental Protection include seven in Western Pennsylvania. A state law passed this year awards $1 million to each of the Pennsylvania's wildlife management agencies to pay for reviewing Marcellus Shale environmental impact permits.

The PFBC reviewed about 5,000 well permit requests last year. Arway said that money is expected to arrive at the agency in September. "That's fine, but our costs go up every day," he said. "I'm cautiously optimistic."

Financial relief could be in sight. Last week the state House of Representatives passed HB 1049, "a monumental piece of legislation," in Arway's words, that would allow the state's wildlife agencies more leeway in licensing.

If approved by Gov. Tom Corbett, Fish and Boat would be permitted to experiment with multi-year fishing license configurations, providing the cost is not higher for licenses sold in single-year units.

"One out of four anglers buys a fishing license once every five years," said Arway. "As a result of the legislation that passed [June 6], the legislature allows us to try multi-year licenses, such as a three-year license or a five-year license." Arway said more than 25 percent of the state Department of Transportation's licenses are sold in multi-year units.

Fish and Boat currently gives boaters the option of buying two-year registrations. Few American states give that level of flexibility to their wildlife managers.

"We're [eager] for the governor to sign it. Then we need to evaluate the pricing and how that would work," said Arway. "It really gives us the opportunity to manage our business on our own, more so than we have done in the past."