Telltale signs make it easy for avid anglers to identify trout

• By P.J. Reilly/LNP | LancasterOnline

For avid trout anglers, telling the difference between a rainbow trout and a brown trout is fairly easy.

The rainbow trout’s pink lateral line, and the brown trout’s complete lack of any pink coloration, is the most noticeable distinction between the two.

Telling a brook trout from a brown also is simple, given the brook trout’s mostly green body, and multi-spotted sides over an orange belly.

Wild brown trout generally are brown, or greenish brown, with spotted sides and yellowish bellies.

Still, there are the occasional fish with muted colors that can make correctly identifying each trout not quite so immediate.

But the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission is banking on a majority of anglers being able to tell the difference between rainbows, brookies and browns as it rolls out a program of adding stocked rainbow trout to Class A wild brown trout waters, with an aim to allow anglers to keep the rainbows, but catch and release the browns and any brook trout they might also encounter.

“Staff are currently monitoring and evaluating the effect of this regulation on the wild brown trout populations over a 5-year to 7-year period at which time staff will either recommend continuing the management strategy applied to these fisheries or recommend an alternate approach to optimize these fisheries,” agency officials wrote in the Commission’s Oct. 27 meeting agenda.

“The results of this evaluation will provide valuable management insight regarding the use of these regulations on large, productive streams with high angler use that are of size and character sufficient to support a fishery comprised of both Class A wild trout and stocked trout components.”

 

Pennsylvania is littered with streams suitable for supporting wild brown trout.

Notice I said “wild” brown trout, and not “native” brown trout.

Brown trout are not native to Pennsylvania. They were introduced in 1886, when eggs from Germany were hatched in a Fish and Boat Commission hatchery and then released into the wild.

There are now plenty of self-sustaining, populations of wild brown trout across Pennsylvania.

The state has more than 67,000 streams flowing through it. Of those, about 6,000 have been identified as suitable for holding wild trout.

But there are about 49,000 streams that have never even been surveyed.

Every year, new streams are surveyed and evaluated by Fish and Boat Commission staff.

In the meantime, the agency wants to get the best use of the waters it knows can support trout.

And obviously, if a stream has sufficient habitat conditions to earn the designation of a Class A wild brown trout water, it’s going to be suitable for all species of trout.

The Class A designation is the highest imposed by the Fish and Boat Commission. It requires a stream “support a population of wild (natural reproduction) trout of sufficient size and abundance to support a long-term and rewarding sport fishery,” the agency states on its website.

And when we say “stream” here, we don’t necessarily mean the whole stream. The Fish and Boat Commission will designate certain sections of a stream as Class A, while other sections can have lesser designations.

Historically, when a section of stream earns a Class A designation, trout stocking on that section – if there was any – is stopped.

That’s for good reason.

“The impacts of stocking on wild trout populations are well documented in the literature and through Commission surveys of wild trout streams in this Commonwealth,” agency officials state in the Oct. 27 agenda.

“Commission monitoring and evaluation of wild trout populations in this Commonwealth demonstrate that stocking depresses wild trout populations for a variety of reasons, including competition for habitat and food, interference competition, increased harvest, increased hooking and handling, among other factors.”

But what is the effect on wild brown trout if you stock rainbows alongside them and allow anglers to keep them, but not the brown and brook trout?

That’s the question the agency is looking to answer with the introduction last year of special regulations that allow for exactly that on certain Class A waters.

And of course, a key component to such a program is having anglers tell the difference between the three species of trout.

Turns out, Pennsylvania trout anglers are pretty good at that.

Over several years prior to 2024, Fish and Boat Commission staff surveyed more than 500 anglers on Bald Eagle Creek in Centre and Blair counties.

According to agency spokesman Mike Parker, 97 percent of anglers surveyed correctly identified the three species of trout.

Class A stream sections that have been – and will be – governed by special rules to allow for stocking and for anglers to keep those stocked fish, are posted with special signs with information about identifying rainbow trout – including golden rainbows – brook trout and brown trout.

In 2024, the Fish and Boat Commission set special regulations on 12 Class A stream sections that allow for taking stocked rainbow trout. Any brown trout or brook trout caught must immediately be released.

A 13th stream – Freeman Run – in October was approved for inclusion in the program as well.

The special rules mirror those for trout fishing on stocked waters, such as Hammer Creek and Little Conestoga Creek in Lancaster County.

Anglers can keep up to five rainbow trout per day measuring at least 7 inches long from the opening of trout season through Sept. 1, and they can keep three trout per day from Sept. 2 through Dec. 3.

The streams where these rules have been applied include one or more sections of Bald Eagle Creek, Fishing Creek, Kishacoquillas Creek, Little Lehigh Creek, Martins Creek, Monocacy Creek, Penns Creek, Pohopoco Creek and Yellow Creek.

According to Parker, these stream sections were chosen for these special rules because they have a history “of very high angler use,” he said.

Each stream section that’s part of the program will undergo a five- to seven-year monitoring program.

“If wild trout abundance declines significantly, or if angler use does not justify the continued stocking…the study could be terminated, stocking discontinued and regulations revised,” the October meeting agenda states.

And so the wait is underway to see if the best wild trout streams in Pennsylvania can be stocked with trout, which anglers are allowed to keep, without negatively affecting the wild trout populations.

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Signs like this one are posted on Class A streams where anglers are allowed to keep stocked trout to help them identify the different species of trout: trout pdf

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P.J. Reilly is an LNP | LancasterOnline outdoors writer. Email him at preilly@lnpnews.com.