49 Pennsylvania Trout Streams Worthy of a Conservation Status Update

August 14, 2024

Anglers are again campaigning to update the designations of top Pennsylvania waterways to reflect the exceptional status of their wild trout populations and water quality

Four times each year, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission proposes streams to be added to the Class A Wild Trout and Wild Trout lists. Right now, there are 49 Class A and Wild Trout streams that represent the best of our best waters up for designation. Among those eligible for protection during this comment period include Pine Run in Indiana County, Rattlesnake Creek in Pike County, and tributaries of Middle Creek in Wayne County. These outstanding waters positively affect surrounding communities through increased economic activity and improve the natural, scenic, and aesthetic values of the state.

Pennsylvania sportsmen and sportswomen have a chance to influence this process and seal the deal for our best trout streams—here’s why you should take action today.

The Economic Power of Trout Waters

With 86,000 miles of streams and around 4,000 inland lakes, Pennsylvania is home to some of the best publicly accessible fishing that the East Coast has to offer, including phenomenal trout and bass fishing. With opportunities like these, it’s no wonder that 1.2 million Pennsylvanians fished their local waterways in 2020, helping contribute to the state’s $58-billion outdoor recreation economy.

Since 2010, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission has worked with sportsmen and local universities to distinguish our best waters through the Unassessed Waters Program. Based on the UWP’s evaluation, stream sections that meet a set of criteria are eligible for certain protections. For example, streams that have abundant populations of wild rainbow, brown, and brook trout can be eligible for Wild Trout Stream or Class A Stream designations. Protecting these streams ensures that the outdoor recreation industry continues to thrive and that future generations can enjoy the same (or better) fishing opportunities.

Tackle shops and fishing guides are among the businesses that make up an important part of the robust outdoor recreation industry in Pennsylvania. And giving special consideration to the best wild trout streams supports these small businesses.

“When I worked in the local fly shop, the Class A list provided a great reference to point people in the right direction to find trout water,” says Matthew Marran, a flyfishing guide and former fly shop worker in the Delaware River Basin. “As a guide, I depend on Class A waters to put clients on wild trout with consistency and confidence. And I’m seeing more and more people ask when booking to fish exclusively for wild trout.”

Why Does a Designation Matter?

In these cases, what’s in a name really matters: Wild Trout and Class A streams qualify for additional protections from Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, including the limitation of activities around these streams that would degrade water quality. The Wild Trout Stream title designates a water as a Coldwater Fishery and protects surrounding wetlands from development. Similarly, streams that qualify for the Class A designation get additional recognition as high-quality waters, which restricts in-stream discharges and guards against habitat degradation.

These designations from the PFBC are critical to helping the state manage and protect fish populations, especially as demands on Pennsylvania’s water resources continue to increase. When you consider that roughly 40 percent of streams across the state are NOT suitable for fishing, swimming, and/or drinking water, according to the DEP, it makes sense to safeguard the exceptional waterways that already meet top standards and support outdoor recreation that drives our economy.

Fortunately, sportsmen and sportswomen understand the importance of this process. A TRCP survey found that 92 percent of Pennsylvania sportsmen and women support designating streams when they meet the right criteria.

What You Can Do to Help

Pennsylvania’s hunters and anglers have an important opportunity to conserve more critical streams. If we don’t speak up, these exceptional waterways could easily be degraded and eventually lost to pollution.

Take action now and tell the PA Fish and Boat Commission that you value these protections for clean water and fish habitat.

This blog was originally posted in November 2019 and has been updated for each quarterly public comment period. The current comment period ends on September 9, 2024.

Banner photo credit Noah Davis; other photos by Derek Eberly.

6 Responses to “49 Pennsylvania Trout Streams Worthy of a Conservation Status Update”

John P Wheelus Jr December 19, 2019

How much will this cost and where is the money coming from to pay for it?

December 19, 2019 at 6:19 pm

Reply
Lee P. December 22, 2019

I cannot speak for PFBC, but my assumption would be that the actual cost of implementing these classification changes would be virtually nil other than the normal day to day data base updates, etc. within the concerned state agencies, in this case, PF&BC, PA-DEP and maybe a couple others. This is much more a simple act of designation than anything requiring significant regulatory action. It is also a very good thing, IMO…

December 22, 2019 at 12:48 pm

Reply
michael Gondell March 11, 2020

I completely support the work done by the TRCP to upgrade trout streams in PA to protect them. I also support
the work of TRCP and other conservation organizations like Trout Unlimited etc. The current Trump administration
must stop the dismantling of effective government organizations that also further these goal and this administration must be opposed.

March 11, 2020 at 3:49 pm

Reply
Larry Peters January 29, 2021

Where are these streams ?

January 29, 2021 at 6:29 pm

Reply
Alan L Higley February 26, 2021

be careful of this upgrade, because it will now and in the future restrict recreational activities along these waterways. as long as they are doing so well as is a better argument would be to to continue current designation.

February 26, 2021 at 8:57 am

Reply
Mark K December 8, 2021

Any time we can do something to protect our best trout stream we should do it. It’s always a lot cheaper to protect a high quality trout steam than to try to restore a degraded stream. Dollar for dollar its the best bang for the buck. If the Pa Fish and Boat Commission is recommending an upgrade to a stream, all the water quality, habitat evaluation and fish population studies (the work) has been documented on the stream. The idea of redesignation is to protect them from degradation, not restrict recreational use. As you indicate, out of all the streams is PA there is a very small percentage of streams that meet the criteria of supporting natural reproduction and being designated a wild trout or class A wild trout steam. They all deserve the added protection from degradation redesignation provides.

December 8, 2021 at 10:53 pm

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by: Ryan Lockwood

posted in: Habitat and Clean Water

August 13, 2024

In the Arena: Capt. Tyler Nonn

TRCP’s “In the Arena” series highlights the individual voices of hunters and anglers who, as Theodore Roosevelt so famously said, strive valiantly in the worthy cause of conservation.

Tyler Nonn

Hometown: Cape Charles, Virginia
Occupation: Fishing guide and owner/operator of Tidewater Charters
Conservation credentials: Nonn can be counted on to be vocal about menhaden conservation at meetings of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, in TRCP-led advocacy pushes, and other Chesapeake Bay conservation issues.

Capt. Tyler Nonn runs Tidewater Charters, a fly fishing and light tackle angling operation in the Chesapeake Bay that gets clients onto striped bass, redfish, speckled trout, and cobia. He offers a critical captain’s perspective on the importance of healthy menhaden populations when decision-makers are considering policy decisions. Nonn, a Simms ambassador who winters in the Florida Keys to target sportfish dependent on a healthy Everglades ecosystem, has been featured in The Venturing Angler and Flylords Mag.

Here is his story.

Growing up as a kid in the Upper Chesapeake Bay, I had two avenues to fish all the time. My family’s farm had a small pond on it and just as I was getting old enough to really appreciate good fishing, the moratorium on striped bass was first lifted. Upper Bay seasons were created that allowed me and many other anglers to enjoy the eruption of giant fish on the shallow flats and rivers creating some of the best fishing you could ask for. So between ponds, phenomenal Bay fishing, and crabbing with my father and friends the outdoors consumed me and all my time.

“I still come back to the Chesapeake… because chasing the inshore species that call this place home is my passion.”

Probably my most memorable outdoor experience was working in Alaska through the summers of my early 20s. Coming from the East Coast, it was very different and exciting to learn completely new techniques and to apply them to a fishery far from anything I had ever experienced.

I have been fortunate to travel and fish in a lot of places in this country and in several others. But I still come back to the Chesapeake not only because my business is here, but because chasing the inshore species that call this place home is my passion. Giant striped bass, redfish, cobia, speckled trout, and other species make it nearly a year-round fishery.

Like everywhere the Bay has plenty of problems. The biggest conservation challenge we have here, in my opinion, is the division or separation within the user groups of our natural resources. I feel like this is common in many places. In the end everyone wants more fish in one way or another, but the separation of user groups makes fisheries issues very politically charged, and more often than not really difficult to get anything positive accomplished.

I watch the intense harvest of “bunker,” or Atlantic menhaden, most of the year in the lower portions of the Bay and near coastal waters. As far as the impact on sportfishing goes, when the bait is present it completely changes the landscape of fishing. Fish hold consistently in areas when bait like menhaden are abundant. Then as it diminishes fish move out of areas nearly instantly. Even the differences in fishing conditions from Virginia to Maryland portions of the Bay are incredibly different, even sometimes just a few miles apart.

Conservation directly impacts my entire life and everything in it. Without fish and the opportunity to catch them, I wouldn’t have my business – or more importantly, fuel to feed my lifelong passion. It’s important for myself and everyone to be involved in conservation because it’s our legacy as anglers. I really enjoy fishing, to say the least, and I want others to be able to have the same experiences that I have been able to have, or even better in the future.

“Everyone should have the future of our fisheries in mind.”

Just like generations before us, and the generations to come, everyone should have the future of our fisheries in mind. Fishermen are some of the greatest conservationists and supporters of wildlife, and hunters as well. This will no doubt be our saving grace as time marches on and people continue to want to enjoy the outdoors.

Photo credits: Tyler Nonn

Learn more about menhaden and herring as critical forage fish species.

by: Rob Thornberry

posted in: Habitat and Clean Water

August 8, 2024

Local Partnership Saves Drivers, Wildlife in Eastern Idaho

Raising bridges and adding fences allows big game to avoid busy blacktop

Like so much early, modern development across America, the railroads and highways through Idaho’s Lemhi Valley were not constructed with fish and wildlife in mind.

First, railroad tracks were laid between Salmon and Gilmore, straight lines of progress carting people to the center of the state to find and deliver a menagerie of precious metals to help build the growing nation. To accommodate the rigid tracks, the river was straightened; leaving the fish without suitable places to rest and spawn. The highway, now known as State Highway 28, followed, and no concessions were made for the area’s deer, elk, moose, pronghorn, and fish, which included ocean-going species such as salmon and steelhead.

For decades, these developments brought a litany of unexpected consequences. Many big game animals have been killed on the highway, and the precipitous decline in anadromous fish stocks can be traced, in part, to the loss of quality spawning and rearing habitat in the channelized Lemhi River attributing to, in part, a decrease of quality hunting and fishing opportunities.

The most unusual big game animal to use the underpass was this mountain goat, six miles as the crow flies from the nearest peak.

Fortunately, a plucky team of state officials, federal land-managers, private citizens, and nonprofit leaders, including the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, have banded together to improve the safety of wildlife and motorists on the altered landscape near Leadore, Idaho.

“It is the coolest project I have worked on in my career,” said Jessie Shallow, a Mule Deer Foundation – Idaho Department of Fish and Game partner biologist, who has worked on the wildlife crossing project for roughly four years.

The process began when the Idaho Department of Transportation decided to update several of the bridges that cross the Lemhi River to meet federal flood standards. Although not a specific goal of the bridge project, IDFG worked with ITD to incorporate design elements that would hopefully improve wildlife movement under the roadway. Resulting accommodations for wildlife were wider and taller bridges, making the tunnels large enough for wildlife such as deer, elk, and moose to cross under the highway.

When the bridge replacement project came in under budget, the excess funds were allocated to build wildlife fences that would funnel the wildlife to the new structures. In 2020, the IDT built three miles of funnel fence on each side of the highway, ushering animals to cross the highway under the bridges and not on the asphalt. The fences were a game changer. Fish and Game documented roughly 40 animal crossings in the underpasses before the fence was built, and over 400 through the underpasses per year once the wildlife funnel fence was in place.

“It is the coolest project I have worked on in my career.”
Jessie Shallow, Mule Deer Foundation – Idaho Department of Fish and Game partner biologist

Project partners are now using more grant funding to extend an existing funnel fence two more miles along both sides of the highway. The location of the extension was prioritized based on frequent road-kill counts, and sadly, a wildlife-vehicle collision which caused a human fatality in that section.

Shallow predicts that the extended fence will reduce wildlife vehicle collisions by more than 80 percent in that section.

Using game cameras, Fish and Game officials have captured dozens of animals traveling under the highway. Everything from deer, moose, and mountain lions and even a mountain goat, which was miles from the nearest mountain ranges.

“It has been a complete success,” said Shallow.

The only remaining issue on this stretch of Highway 28 was aiding the animals that became stuck inside the funnel fence and needed to exit the roadway. Traditionally, biologists designed steep jump-outs for animals, but in this instance, there was not sufficient space within the right-of-way for those to be constructed.

Shallow overcame this challenge by adapting a gate project designed in Utah that allowed elk to escape apple orchards. Instead of using traditional V-gates, which allow anglers to access the river, Fish and Game and the Mule Deer Foundation created one-way gates that wildlife could push through to escape the highway side to safety. Think of a beaded curtain in a palm-reader’s hazy shop, but instead of beads, the curtain is made of metal posts that swing only out. Placed on a fence corner, these new one-way gates are wide enough for whitetails and similar-sized animals to leave the road but narrow enough to keep cattle off the highway.

The one-way gates were immediately successful as Fish and Game tracked a substantial increase in the number of animals that were able to escape the roadway after gaining access at the fence end. Although not the perfect solution, the effectiveness of the one-way gates has been encouraging. The key to success for these one-way gates is that they must be placed where the funnel fence makes a corner – these are natural areas that wildlife will congregate and attempt to escape.

Mountain lions using the 1-way gate to successfully exit the roadway.

While there are many other places throughout Idaho that still need infrastructure to help animals cross roadways safety during their daily and seasonal movements, the bridge underpasses and miles of fencing on Highway 28 are tangible work that directly improve motorist safety and increase hunting opportunity.

“We are making a difference,” Shallow said. “It is very rewarding.”

Bryan Young, traffic/operations engineer for ITD agreed and looks forward to partnering with the agency and organizations in the future.

“It has been very exciting to be part of this project and to build a partnership with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game that will last for a lifetime,” said Young.

Learn more about wildlife crossing work in Idaho HERE.

Photo courtesy of IDFG

The TRCP is your resource for all things conservation. In our weekly Roosevelt Report, you’ll receive the latest news on emerging habitat threats, legislation and proposals on the move, public land access solutions we’re spearheading, and opportunities for hunters and anglers to take action. Sign up now.

by: Ryan Lockwood

posted in: Habitat and Clean Water

August 7, 2024

Workgroup Established to Consider Chesapeake Bay Menhaden Regulations

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission workgroup will eye precautionary, Bay-specific menhaden fishery management measures to protect predators like ospreys and striped bass

The Menhaden Management Board (MMB) of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted yesterday to establish a workgroup to consider options for precautionary management of the Chesapeake Bay industrial menhaden fishery, including time and area closures, to account for seabird and fish diet needs at critical points in their life cycles. The workgroup will be organized over the coming weeks and will start the process of thinking through what future management measures for the Bay menhaden fishery might look like, to lower the pressure that ospreys and other menhaden predators are facing in one of America’s most important estuaries.

Menhaden are baitfish that play an essential role in marine food webs, providing a vital food source for not only ospreys, but many larger species like striped bass, redfish, whales, dolphins, and seabirds.

The motion to establish a workgroup, which was unanimously supported by the MMB, was put forward by the Maryland ASMFC delegation’s Allison Colden, who is also Maryland executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The group should begin to answer some of the questions that conservation groups have had for years about the menhaden fishery’s impact on the Bay ecosystem, and will propose potential sustainable solutions for the ASMFC to deliberate.

“We’re seeing some major ecological red flags in the Chesapeake Bay,” said Allison Colden, CBF Maryland executive director. “From struggling osprey populations to dismal menhaden bait landings, it’s clear that additional precautions are needed.”

Chesapeake Bay residents and scientists have been sounding the alarm about a lack of menhaden in the Bay leading to lower osprey chick-rearing success. This led to the MMB inviting the U.S. Geological Survey to make a presentation on Aug. 6 to inform the Board about the status of osprey in the Chesapeake Bay, and the problems these birds of prey are currently facing. Data shows that ospreys in some parts of the Bay are particularly reliant on oil-rich menhaden as food for their young, especially in the spring and summer months during chick-rearing season when male ospreys must bring in extra food to feed their mate and offspring. In recent years, the numbers have shown that ospreys in parts of the Bay are unsuccessful in raising enough young each year to sustain stable long-term populations, due in part to a lack of food availability for young chicks.

While the Atlantic menhaden fishery is already managed to account for the diet needs of multiple fish predators, such as striped bass and bluefish, to leave enough forage in the water for those fish to eat, osprey are not explicitly included in that management structure despite their clear reliance on menhaden in their diets. Updated stock assessments will be published in fall 2025, which will essentially model how menhaden have been interacting with the Atlantic ecosystem in recent years, and will help managers set appropriate harvest quotas in future fishing seasons. Unfortunately, those assessment calculations are not detailed enough to determine how the menhaden fishery is impacting the ecosystem in specific zones, such as within the Chesapeake Bay region, where harvest is concentrated.

“Setting specific regulations tailored to regional differences in harvest, based on what we know now, is a way to manage the menhaden fishery in a precautionary manner until the stock assessment science can catch up,” said Jaclyn Higgins, forage fish program manager for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “We have a wide range of longstanding seabird data that has been collected for decades, which shows us the ebb and flow of osprey populations along the Atlantic. We know that osprey chicks aren’t getting enough to eat in the Chesapeake, and we know they are reliant on menhaden in that important chick-rearing timeframe.”

Higgins says that establishing regulations that leave more menhaden in the water in the Bay at critical times, based on osprey needs and the needs of other Bay predators, is an ideal way to expand upon the ecosystem-based management framework that the ASMFC already uses to manage this iconic forage fish.

“The TRCP is excited to support this movement towards further refining the ecosystem-based management of the Atlantic menhaden fishery,” Higgins said. “Refining the spatial components of the ASMFC’s menhaden management structure will further improve the sustainability of this fishery, and will allow for more predators to have sufficient access to this critical forage species into the future.”

The workgroup expects to present their findings to the MMB at its October 2024 meeting.

For more information about the key role menhaden and other forage fish play in marine ecosystems, visit TRCP’s forage fish recovery page.

Banner image of osprey with menhaden courtesy Chesapeake Bay Program

by: Ryan Lockwood

posted in: Habitat and Clean Water

July 25, 2024

Capt. Steve Huff Talks Fishing, Conservation, & Clean Water

Anyone who knows Huff knows he tells it like it is. He was gracious enough to share some thoughts on South Florida fishing and Everglades restoration with the rest of us.

Those who know South Florida fishing know of Captain Steve Huff, who has been called the “best fishing guide alive.” Huff is a humble man, though, and quickly dismisses that reference. He doesn’t frequent fishing expos, or post on social media, or star in television shows. But for decades, he’s been out on the water. He simply heads out at dawn each day, poles his boat with practiced grit, and makes damn sure his clients catch memorable fish – even now in his so-called retirement. He’s fished professionally from the Lower Keys up through Florida Bay and the southern reaches of the Everglades, including Ten Thousand Islands. TRCP asked Huff about his thoughts on South Florida fishing, Everglades restoration, and the importance of clean water. We’ve chosen to simply share excerpts of his own words on issues, rather than couch them in our own.

(Warning: Some people may find the language in this post offensive.)

I started guiding 56 years ago in the Keys, and the target species at that time were, for me at least, bonefish, tarpon, and permit. Snook were very available in the Flamingo area on the north side of Florida Bay, and around the bridges in the Keys. I guided some people to numerous world records for permit. But it’s impossible to compare fishing today to back then because it’s almost non-existent now compared to what it was. The permit fishing in the Lower Keys, Key West, has virtually collapsed.

The terminology people use “back in the day,” well, back in the day I would go permit fishing out of Key West with a good angler and we’d get 50 opportunities sometimes to cast to a fish. Today, a really good guide might get three to five shots a day. The permit are virtually gone now.

The Everglades down to the Keys is still a beautiful, gorgeous, viable area. But it’s suffering from poor water quality. Even though water pretty much looks like regular water coming south, it’s not the same if it’s full of nutrients that are damaging to the environment. I’ve been fighting environmental battles in Florida my whole adult career trying to raise awareness and curtail pell-mell bulldozing and all that stuff. It’s all about tax bases, build houses, raise revenue. More schools, more folks, and nobody gives a shit about a snook or a permit. They don’t care. But a golf course? It’s a given. Having spent a lifetime crusading for the South Florida watershed, I frankly think it seems like a hopeless cause. But I challenge the conservation community to prove me wrong.

The way I see it is you really have to support conservation groups if you want a chance at all. Either physically, getting out and working with them to clean the water up, or by giving them money and having them hire people to do it. Just get on something that you think can make a difference.

If you’re a guide and talk someone into catching something it’s an even greater thrill than fishing for yourself because you’re still fishing but you’re fishing through their eyes and trying to guide them into the thrill of a lifetime. That’s what guides do. How cool is that?

It’s a combination of weather and baitfish and angler skill and a whole bunch of different variables that connect, and you go f*#kin’ A! This is what it’s about. Every once in a while you fall into something that fabulous and you hope you’re with someone who appreciates it as much as you do.

The Everglades is still a great place in the world. I get up every day and go out there with the wind in my face. It’s a mysterious place, incredibly mysterious. I always feel like I’m close to the fish of a lifetime even though I haven’t caught one yet, in 56 years. I’ll catch one on the next cast though.

The very first fish I caught in my life was a snook. It weighed about two pounds. I was 10 years old. And I killed it immediately, brought it home. I didn’t know what it was. I just knew it had a stripe on the side. I put it in the refrigerator and my sister’s boyfriend told me it was a snook.

There’s something about the very first fish of significance that you catch. I’ve caught every kind of fish in the world practically, but snook will always be my favorite. They are sneaky. You can be in and around a lot of snook at the time, and they don’t give themselves away. Other fish tend to give themselves away. Tarpon break the surface when they roll. Bonefish stick their tails out of the water. Permit do as well. But snook just lay there, and they feel like they’re gonna stab you in the back if you move the wrong way. I’ll always come home to snook.

The west coast of Florida is suffering from algae blooms, from toxic water events, and it is in a great decline. The snook fishery is in a great decline from Tampa south. I believe it’s because of water quality sweeping down the coast.

The solution to Everglades restoration is clean water coming down from the core of the state, from Orlando south through the Kissimmee, Lake Okeechobee, and delivering clean water to the Gulf and the Shark River system and Florida Bay system. Clean water, viable water to support all sorts of life, with the emphasis on clean, because currently Lake Okeechobee water is notoriously contaminated. If you have high-quality water that’s producing food for the fish, as it enters the Gulf of Mexico it moves south through the Keys and if it’s high-quality water its capable of supporting life other than just the fish – meaning their food source, be it crabs, shrimp, baitfish, everything. Water quality and Everglades habitat considerations are one in the same.

There’s an organization called Captains for Clean Water. A bunch of fishing guides got together and decided they were gonna make an effort, and God bless ‘em, they’re making a big effort and I’ve gone to some of their events and they’re hugely supported. A whole bunch of folks show up. My hat is off to [TRCP partner] Captains for Clean Water. They’re a bunch of great guys and they’re doing the right thing as best they can.

Educating the public and trying to get someone to understand how special this system is and how it definitely influences life on this planet, and whether or not they’re going to be able to feed themselves or their children will be able to feed themselves in 40 years, is so important. We need to change behaviors to attain cleaner water going into the system in the first place. Educating the public that it’s not just water for the fish, but water for our own lives, so we don’t have toxic water. People are always complaining because dead fish are floating in these canals in Naples because nothing can live in the water. Would they like to see it clean? They don’t know what a gamefish is, but they certainly don’t want dead fish floating behind their house.

I think quite honestly the best you can possibly do with any degree of success at all is effective education of the public and the user groups about how valuable an asset the Everglades is. And make them aware, especially the people that are using it, and how not to abuse it when you’re actually there and how to appreciate what a magnificent thing it is.

You tell a kid something when he’s 10 years old and he won’t forget it for the rest of his life. If you can plant that seed, maybe there’s a future for some of these kids to actually see some neat stuff in nature other than a merry-go-round in Disney World. What are the numbers of kids that actually get to experience fresh air and feel something pulling on their line and see a flock of gorgeous birds?

People need to understand how to respect what they have and not take advantage of what they have. Maybe appeal to the youth that this place does exist and maybe not in my lifetime but in their lifetime they can make a difference.

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Click here to support Everglades habitat conservation efforts by insisting that lawmakers continue to provide funding for critical infrastructure work.

All photos, except of Huff with snook, courtesy of Captain David Mangum, co-director of “Huff – The Film”