Reform Pennsylvania's Fishing License Validity Period

       Reform Pennsylvania's Fishing License Validity Period

Currently, Pennsylvania's fishing licenses are valid from January 1st to December 31st of the same year, regardless of when they are purchased. This system is not fair to those who purchase their licenses later in the year, as they do not receive a full year's worth of use. We propose that Pennsylvania change its fishing license validity period to last from the date of purchase until the same date in the following year. This would ensure that everyone gets full value for their license fee.

According to statistics from The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, over a million fishing licenses were sold in 2019 alone. However, there is no data on how many were purchased later in the year and thus did not provide a full year's worth of fishing privileges. By changing this policy, we can ensure fairness for all anglers in our state.

We urge you to support this change and make sure every angler gets what they pay for - a full year’s worth of fishing privileges. Please sign this petition today!

Click the QR Code to reach the petition  

Pa. House committee thwarts Senate bill that would've hiked fishing license fees

By John Hayes / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pennsylvania fishing license fees will hold firm for the 2018-19 season after a state House of Representatives committee stopped a Senate bill that would have increased prices.

PennLive reported that at a meeting of the House Game and Fisheries Committee Tuesday, legislators were critical of John Arway, executive director of the Fish and Boat Commission, and refused to advance the bill, which had passed in the Senate by a large majority.

The committee’s refusal to advance the bill to the House floor came as no surprise. Committee chairman Rep. Keith Gillespie, R-York, recently told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette there was “absolutely no way” a funding bill could proceed with Mr. Arway at the agency’s helm. His committee sent a bill to the House floor that would set an eight-year term limit on the Fish and Boat executive director position that would force Mr. Arway from his position.

Since 2005, a resident adult fishing license has cost $22.90. The Senate bill would have increased next year’s fee to about $28.90, including processing fees, with annual increases of 3 percent during each of the following four years.

Fish and Boat operates on a $52 million budget raised through license sales, federal excise taxes on fishing gear and boating fuel, and resource leases. The agency gets no funding from state taxes, but the legislature sets license fees.

Last year the Board of Fish and Boat Commissioners ordered Mr. Arway to trim $2 million from the budget if he couldn’t get the legislature to increase funding. In testimony yesterday, Mr. Arway twice apologized for briefly posting a map on the Fish and Boat website linking legislative districts with trout streams that would not be stocked if a license-fee increase was not approved.

Like the Game Commission, Fish and Boat holds a reserve of contingency funds used to make scheduled payments and respond quickly to emergencies during seasonal gaps in license sales. Mr. Gillespie challenged Fish and Boat cash reserves of $49.7 million and said the agency should be audited before a license-fee increase is considered.

John Hayes: 412-263-1991, jhayes@post-gazette.com.

PA Fish hatcheries could close if there’s no vote on raising revenues

By John Hayes / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In the battle for wildlife agency funding, the hip boot may now be on the other foot.

Fish and Boat Commissioners have given executive director John Arway authority to slash $2 million in services if the state legislature does not act on raising license fees.

Arway is telling his “customers” that if their representatives fail to schedule a vote, he’ll close two warm water fish hatcheries and one trout hatchery and make “severe” cuts in Fish and Boat’s cooperative nur sery program during fiscal year 2018-2019. Waterborne first-responder training could also be in jeopardy, said Arway.

On the homepage of the Fish and Boat website, director Arway explains the agency’s fiscal dilemma and posts a link connecting voters with their state representatives. In effect, the state Fish and Boat Commission, a non-funded agency loosely linked to the executive branch, is suggesting that citizens withhold votes for targeted members of the legislative branch if they don’t hold a vote on increasing funding.

In legislative language those are fighting words -- a threat directed at politicians who bristle at being backed into political corners.

“I think we’re the ones boxed into a corner,” said Arway. “We haven’t had an increase in license fees since 2004. This agency gets no General Fund money from the state. We’ve cut personnel as far as it can be cut. State senators have twice voted to give us authority to control our own license fees, but the House won’t hold a vote on raising license fees and won’t hold a vote on allowing us to do it ourselves. We’re at the brink of reducing services because of that, and I think their constituents should know it.”

Fish and Boat operates on a $60 million budget. The $2 million gambit was raised against a backdrop years in the making. Hunting and fishing license fees are set by the legislature. Lawmakers, particularly in some parts of the state, are traditionally reluctant to face voters after raising license fees. No action is taken for years; agency costs continue to grow. When license fees are finally raised, the jump is so high and abrupt that the agencies independently report losing about 10 percent of license holders.

The last raise in hunting license fees was in 1999. The Game Commission’s $120 million budget is also stressed, but the agency has not joined in the Fish and Boat threat to withhold services.

The state Senate approved measures that would authorize both agencies to control their own license fees with legislative oversight, assuming the fees would increase gradually every year or two. In the state House, similar bills are stuck in committee without a vote scheduled for the fall term. Arway’s ultimatum has ruffled feathers, but the tactic may have backfired.

“It’s resonating with a lot of members. A couple of my colleagues are livid over the matter,” said Rep. Keith Gillespie, R-York, majority chairman of the House Game and Fisheries Committee. “The people who are most upset are very much in favor of authorizing [self-regulation of fees], but they take offense at being pushed into a corner. There has been damage done with the threats or release of information. We would have preferred that it would have been done another way.”

Gillespie said he strongly supports the self-regulation of fees, but can’t generate enough votes to move the bills beyond his committee.

“A bunch of my colleagues are not willing to give up that authority,” he said, and some don’t want the vote to be held months before an election year. Gillespie said he has heard of no linkage to other issues, such as horse-trading over support for a shale gas severance tax.

Arway said the service-reduction plan was based on recommendations of the Pennsylvania State University Ecosystem Science and Management College of Agricultural Sciences, which this year conducted an 85-page business analysis of the Fish and Boat Commission. If enacted the plan would, among other things, reduce the number of trout stocked by 7.5 percent -- 240,000 adult trout stocked in 61 streams and four lakes -- and affect the production and stocking of walleye, muskellunge, northern pike and channel catfish.

“It’s not like John’s being capricious,” said Gillespie. “He has mentioned the problem on numerous occasions. He’s saying Rome is burning and this is necessary.”

PA Sportsmen Already Paying The Price

By Bob Frye, Tribune-Review

You walk into your doctor's office with a bullet hole in one leg, stab wounds in your chest, severe burns on your feet and, what the heck, let's throw in a doozy of a hangnail, too.

Clearly, you need care.

And your doctor's response?

He asks if you've been taking your vitamins. He wonders if you've considered getting more exercise. He suggests you fundraise to buy bandages and promises you baby aspirin, maybe, later, if you can convince the neighbors you need them.

That's how Pennsylvania lawmakers treated sportsmen last week.

The executive directors of the Pennsylvania Game and Fish and Boat commissions delivered their annual reports to the members of the House of Representatives game and fisheries committee. As expected, both spent a significant portion of their time asking for money.

Hunting and furtaking license prices haven't changed since 1999; fishing licenses not since 2005.

Increasingly, that's leading to consequences.

The Game Commission has already closed two pheasant farms, something that will mean 50,000 fewer pheasants ­­— at least — for hunters this fall. Next up, said executive director Matt Hough, might be the shuttering of the Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area and Howard Nursery, which provides trees and shrubs for game lands.

The Fish and Boat Commission, meanwhile, will have no choice but to make “deep program cuts” starting in 2018 without additional revenue, said executive director John Arway. It's likely some of those will come via hatcheries, he warned.

Both agencies are short on law enforcement officers — the front line against poaching — and may get shorter, the directors said.

That's all on lawmakers.

Only they can increase prices. The fact that they haven't in so long is, as Wes Waldron of the United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania said recently, “at best unconscionable.”

What's the holdup?

Naked self preservation.

Lawmakers didn't display any animus toward the commissions, unlike in times past. But they danced all around the fee issue.

They quizzed the agencies on whether they're cutting costs. They suggested other ways of raising revenue, like selling permits to allow people to use ATVs on game lands. One offered to propose giving each $1 million in general tax money — something that's unprecedented — to tide them over until something, meaning who knows what, changes.

That's all fine as far as it goes. The commissions should be pressured to be efficient and creative.

But none of those ideas will solve their problems or help sportsmen.

Several lawmakers said they understand that and have heard virtually every statewide sportsmen's group say they favor fee hikes.

But they also made clear they won't risk votes back home to do anything about it, not until the commissions can somehow prove an even wider groundswell of support.

Enough's enough.

No one likes paying more for anything. But the time's come.

Sportsmen who value fish and wildlife and the recreation they provide must tell lawmakers to properly our natural resource agencies.

If not, we'll all pay the price in other ways.

Bob Frye is the Tribune-Review outdoors editor. Reach him at 412-216-0193 or bfrye@tribweb.com. See other stories, blogs, videos and more at everybodyadventures.com.

Failed legislation likely to mean change

BY BOB FRYE

Now comes the fallout.

State lawmakers essentially have wrapped up their legislative session. The House of Representatives has two work days left, Nov. 14 and 15. The Senate has one, Nov. 16.

Never say never in Pennsylvania politics — lawmakers once made a pretty regular practice of waiting until elections were over to pass controversial bills — but it seems unlikely anything substantive pertaining to sportsmen will move.

That's how most of this two-year session went.

Eighty-six hunting and fishing bills were introduced. Three — one shrinking the minimum acreage needed for a dog training area, one allowing for disabled hunters to use motorized wheelchairs and a third giving wildlife and waterways conservation officers broader disability benefits — became law.

One other, removing the prohibition on hunting with air-powered and semiautomatic rifles, passed the House and Senate and is awaiting Gov. Tom Wolf's signature. Assuming he gives it, both types of firearms likely will be legal in some form or fashion starting next fall.

But for better or worse, that's it.

Bills that would have allowed teens to try mentored hunting, permitted the use of leashed tracking dogs for finding wounded big game, broadened how money collected from selling Lake Erie stamps could be spent and others failed to move.

They officially will die when lawmakers go into recess.

That is the fate of legislation that would have allowed the Pennsylvania Game and Fish and Boat commissions to set their own license fees. Both wanted to raise prices. The cost of hunting licenses hasn't increased since 1999; fishing licenses since 2003.

Senators gave them the go-ahead. Representatives did not.

Sportsmen will feel the consequences.

Matt Hough, executive director of the Game Commission, said his agency is facing a budget deficit of $7.8 million for fiscal year 2017-18, which begins July 1. To address that it will eliminate some jobs through attrition — not replacing people who retire — and furlough others, he said.

Sportsmen can expect more visible cuts, though. Commissioners said the pheasant stocking program could be eliminated, for example.

Hough said specifics will be discussed when the commission board meets on Dec. 5.

“But there are some substantial cuts coming,” Hough said. “We don't have any choice.”

Anglers won't feel the same pain right away, said Fish and Boat executive director John Arway. There has been no talk of closing trout hatcheries, as was considered once before, he said.

But the commission will have to use its reserve fund to pay things like pension costs, he said. That can't go on forever, he added.

“Eventually we're going to run out of money,” Arway said.

Both directors said they will ask lawmakers again in January to raise license prices. Whether lawmakers do it on their own or give that power to the commissions is immaterial, they agreed.

“We just need a license increase. At this point I don't really care how we get it,” Hough said.

In the meantime, both agencies – and sportsmen – will have to get used to doing less with less.

Bob Frye is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. Reach him at bfrye@tribweb.com or via Twitter @bobfryeoutdoors.

Gill Lice On PA Brookies

By Bob Frye

Gill lice have made an appearance in Pennsylvania.

The parasite – which attaches to the gills of brook trout – was discovered recently in Wolfe Run in Centre County. A subsequent investigation found evidence of them in nine other waters, too.

All had been stocked by the same cooperative nursery, said Brian Wisner, director of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission’s bureau of hatcheries.

The commission euthanized all of the brookies the nursery had left and replaced them with rainbow trout, which seem resistant to the bugs.

What will become of those streams in the future is harder to say, though, apparently.
Jason Detar, chief of the commission’s division of fisheries management, said there’s been limited research done on gill lice. What is known, he said, is that they’re resistant to chemical treatments and hard to control.

“We’re concerned about this,” he added.

The parasites attach to the gills of individual fish, impacting their ability to process oxygen and causing stress. Some Wisconsin research suggests they show up most often in dry summers in warm water, and can impact survival of young of the year fish, thereby hurting populations, he added.

No one can say what the long-term implications of their presence might mean, though, he added.

Commissioner Bill Sabatose of Elk County said fish with the lice pose no threat to people, however.

“They are safe for human consumption. That’s a fact,” Sabatose said.

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.

New Glade Run Lake Plans Revealed by Fish and Boat Commission

By Bob Frye

HARRISBURG — One Western Pennsylvania lake is about to come back online, albeit with temporary special regulations, and a few others might be inching closer to repairs.

Glade Run Lake in Butler County was drained in 2011 after its dam developed a leak. Work to rebuild it is underway — at a cost of $2.8 million — and should be completed by September, said Paul Urbanik, chief of engineering for Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.

The intent, he said, is to allow it to refill over the winter.

If all goes well, the commission will stock the lake with adult-sized, catchable trout in time for next April's opening day, said Jason Detar, chief of the commission's division of fish management. Anglers will be allowed to harvest those fish just as at any other water, he said.

What they won't be allowed to keep are the assorted minnows and gamefish — namely largemouth bass, white crappie, bluegill, and channel cat fingerlings — that also will be stocked as fingerlings starting next spring. 

Commissioners on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to a proposal putting them off limits, likely for a period of years, so they can grow and repopulate the lake. 

“We want to give them some extra protection and time to develop,” said Andy Shiels, chief of the commission's bureau of fisheries.

That is standard procedure with newly refilled lakes, Detar said. How long the rule stays in place depends on how the fish respond, Detar said. The commission will monitor growth rates and make changes when the populations can handle them, he said.

The commission also is finalizing repair plans and seeking construction permits for several other “high-hazard” dams, including Somerset Lake in Somerset County and Donegal Lake in Westmoreland.

Somerset is partially drawn down. Donegal is not. But both were identified as lakes where dams must be replaced.

The cost of repairing Somerset Lake is estimated at $7.4 million and Donegal at $4.5 million, said Michelle Jacoby, chief of its bureau of engineering.

The commission doesn't have all of that money yet. It is expecting some state funding via Act 89, which directs a portion of wholesale taxes collected on gasoline to the commission for dam repairs, said Tim Schaeffer, director of policy and planning for the commission. It also is working to get capital budget money, he added.

If and when all that comes through — and the agency is hopeful it will be soon — it will decide which of its 10 remaining high-hazard dam projects to tackle first, Schaeffer said. It will then meet with anglers, boaters and others around them to explain the time frame from draining the lakes to refilling them.

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

New Glade Run Lake in Butler County, PA starting to take shape

By Bob Frye 

 

HARRISBURG — It won't always be visible from the surface, but the new Glade Run Lake is going to have a lot more features than the old one.

 

Located off Route 8 in Middlesex, Butler County, the 52-acre lake was drained in 2011 after a state Department of Environmental Protection inspection determined its dam was unsafe. It has been empty ever since.

 

The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission is fixing it, however, at a cost of $2.8 million. That work began in October. It will continue throughout the year, Michele Jacoby, chief of the agency's bureau of engineering, told board members at a meeting Wednesday.

 

If all goes well, the lake will be allowed to refill in 2017, she added.

 

It will be a different water then. The original lake was built in 1955. It had, over time, become little more than a bowl devoid of structure. That's what lakes do, said Ben Page, chief of the commission's lake habitat section.

 

That's not best for fish or fishermen. Lakes function best with a variety of rock, timber, brush and other cover, he added.

 

The commission is adding that to the new lake.

 

It already has installed vertical post clusters — basically rows of posts — in the lakebed, some connected by boards providing horizontal cover. It also has placed rock rubble reefs that jut out perpendicular to the existing jetty.

 

In the shallower upper end of the lake, which used to become weed-choked in summer, the commission is digging deeper channels near shore to hold fish within reach of anglers and using that sediment to create an island in the lake, Page added.

 

Perhaps most notably, the commission is also leaving in place some of the trees that have grown up in the lakebed over the past five years.

 

“They're for habitat, too, and they hold up for three to five years,” Page said.

 

If they prove too big of an impediment to boating, the commission can remove them later, he said. But the idea for now is to let them in place to provide cover for bugs, crayfish and minnows and young fish.

All of that work should lead to a better fishery, said commission executive director John Arway. He said lakes naturally become less productive over time.

 

The commission — whenever it rebuilds a lake — is addressing that, he added.

 

“We're rejuvenating these fisheries, by starting them all over again,” Arway said.

 

One more thing

 

The new Glade Run Lake will be different in one other way: When it is refilled to meet new Department of Environmental Protection standards, the pool level will be 5.3 feet higher than in years past.

 

To handle that, the Fish and Boat Commission needs to acquire “flowage easements” totaling about 12 acres on nine privately owned parcels around the lake, said Brian Barner, deputy executive director for administration.

 

The commission is hoping landowners will donate those easements, he said. That's what those surrounding Colyer Lake in Centre County agreed to do, he added. That lake, too, is being rebuilt.

If the commission can't secure donations, it will have appraisals done and offer “fair market value,” Barner said, turning to eminent domain only as a last resort.

Read more: http://triblive.com/sports/outdoors/9793215-74/lake-commission-added#ixzz3xq3HmVnA 
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Bob Frye is Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at bfrye@tribweb.com or via Twitter @bobfryeoutdoors.

Pennsylvania Fish And Boat Commission Looks To Create Premium Trout Fishing Opportunities

Harry Wade, manager of the Fish and Boat Commission’s
Reynoldsdale hatchery in Bedford County, holds a net full of
trophy brown trout. The commission plans to pack a
bunch of those fish in eight stream sections next year
in an attempt to create premium opportunities for anglers.

By Bob Frye

 

Pine Creek is going on the road.

 

Not the stream itself, of course. But the experience of fishing it.

 

The creek flows through Potter, Tioga and Lycoming counties. It's stocked with trout over more than 50 miles.

There's a 2.8-mile stretch of it, from Slate Run downstream to Bonnell Run, that stands out, though. It's stocked by a group of sportsmen known as the Brown Trout Club. This year, it put in $18,000 worth of trout measuring from 14 to almost 30 inches.

 

Anglers can fish for them year-round, under all tackle, catch and release regulations.

 

The big fish have, by all accounts, proven a draw, bringing in fishermen willing to spend money on tackle, food, gas, lodging and more in return for the chance to catch a monster trout.

 

“This is not a world-class fishery. The trout would have to be wild and naturally reproducing for that,” said Tom Finkbiner, owner of Slate Run Tackle shop and founder of the trout club.

“But it is a world-class fishing experience.”

 

The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission wants to recreate that at eight points across the state.

Each year, the agency stocks 33,000 “trophy trout” — brooks, browns and rainbows — ranging in size from 14 to 20 inches in waters across Pennsylvania. They go in at a density of five to 10 fish per stream mile.

 

Starting next spring, the commission plans to stock 3,300 of those fish — 10 percent of the total — in just eight stream sections, each about one to two miles long, at a density of about 250 trout per mile.

 

The intent is to replicate the kind of trophy fishery that's proven so popular on Pine Creek, said Leroy Young, director of the commission's bureau of fisheries. Anglers should have a 25- to 50-times greater chance of landing a big fish on these waters than they would on others elsewhere in the state, he added.

 

“We're excited about this. We want to provide anglers with an opportunity to fish high-density waters for larger trout compared to the typical 11-inch fish,” Young said.

 

“It's quality, not quantity.”

 

The stream sections that will get the fish haven't been determined. Young said the commission wants to pick ones that are open along their entire length to public fishing, meaning those crossing public land may be good candidates. But commissioners won't announce the chosen streams until their Sept. 28-29 meeting in Erie.

Each of the eight commissioner districts will get one trophy water.

 

That would, for example, put one within the Butler, Clarion, Crawford, Erie, Forest, Lawrence, Mercer, Venango and Warren cluster known as District 1; another in the Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Washington and Westmoreland cluster known as District 2; and another in the Bedford, Blair, Cambria, Fulton, Huntingdon, Juniata, Mifflin and Somerset cluster known as District 4.

 

All of the chosen stream sections will be waters currently managed under delayed harvest, artificial lures only regulations, too, Young said. Those rules limit harvest at certain times of year and prohibit the use of bait. They allow for year-round fishing, though.

 

Young hopes that will alleviate concerns about the big fish drawing crowds so large as to be harmful or unpleasant.

“There shouldn't be a sort of opening-day effect. I don't think it will be a circus,” he said.

 

“The point is to give everyone a couple of months to fish for these trout,” said commission president Ed Mascharka of Erie County.

 

The fact that so many big fish will be going into such relatively little water is important, though, said commissioner Bill Sabatose of Elk County.

 

“So you should be able to notice it,” he said.

 

Anglers on other waterways won't be shortchanged, Young said. All of the waters statewide that have been getting trophy fish will continue to get almost as many as ever. They'll just get about one less per mile than previously, he said.

 

“I doubt we could detect that, and I doubt anglers will be able to detect it,” Young said.

 

That's important, said commissioner Rocco Ali of North Apollo. He likes the new program, he said, in part because it will provide a benefit without simultaneously causing harm.

 

“I think it gives delayed harvest anglers, or anglers willing to fish those waters, more opportunity. But I don't think it's going to hurt the general fisherman, which is important to me,” Ali said.

 

The idea of creating “premium” trout waters has been around since 2008, Young said. That it's finally launching next year is fitting, commission executive director John Arway said.

 

Much like how the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources first stocked golden rainbow trout — then called palominos — in 1963, in honor of the state's 100th anniversary, the commission is going to launch its trophy trout program next year, when it's celebrating its 150th anniversary, he said.

 

The potential of the program is what's really exciting, though, he said.

 

“These programs have successfully demonstrated that destination fisheries can be created, drawing anglers from across the state, and even the country, and providing an economic boost to local communities,” Arway said.

 

Young said the commission will evaluate the program as time goes on, measuring angler use and economics, to see if they're doing all that's hoped.

 

So what's it going to be called?

What the Fish and Boat Commission's new trophy program doesn't have yet is a name.

That will be up to fishermen.

Leroy Young, director of the commission's bureau of fisheries, said staff in that section usually name new programs. Almost invariably, no one likes what they come up with, he said.

“So this time we're not going to do it,” Young said.

Instead — in what is also an attempt to build excitement and get angler buy-in — the commission is going to give fishermen the chance to name the program. They may be given options to choose from, like the blue ribbon, lunker or trophy trout program. But they'll also be able to write in their own suggestions, Young said.

Details on how, when and where votes will be accepted will be announced later.

Commissioner Len Lichvar of Boswell has an idea already, though. He and some friends only half-jokingly like the “trophy rat” waters program.

“That's because if you want to throw a mouse pattern or some really big fly or lure after dark, for big fish, these are going to be the places to do it,” Lichvar said.

 

Bob Frye is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. Reach him at bfrye@tribweb.com or via Twitter @bobfryeoutdoors.