Hickory Run is stocked and ready for Saturday

A dedicated group of anglers volunteer to help stock trout in local creeks every year.

On Thursday, they got a hand from a visitor from Harrisburg — the executive director of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.

Tim Schaeffer visited with volunteers who were stocking trout at Hickory Run State Park in advance of the first day of trout season.

Creeks across most of the state including Monroe and much of Carbon County will officially open for the season Saturday morning.

Schaeffer said the Fish and Boat Commission will stock a total of 3.2 million trout this year, most of them during the month of April in advance of opening day.

“One of the reasons we’re glad to be here at Hickory Run today is we stock over 525,000 trout in state parks and state forest waters,” Schaeffer said.

During Schaeffer’s visit, a group of volunteers from Carbon County and beyond helped lug heavy buckets filled with trout from a special truck equipped with a live well.

The fish and boat commission stocks around the state in order to give fishing licensees a better chance of making a catch. They stock in streams which aren’t capable of sustaining their own population of wild trout, and some which do sustain wild trout but are fished heavily. The state has 13 trout hatcheries, and eight produce trout.

Scott Christman, waterways conservation officer for the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, said there are several factors which go into deciding where stocked trout should go.

“Some streams are not able to produce a population of trout,” he said. “A biologist will check the stream and then they’ll propose it for stocking.”

WCOs like Christman get a say in the matter as well.

Christman said the volunteers are crucial to stocking area creeks.

“If it wouldn’t be for their help, we wouldn’t be able to get to half of these places. And to get the fish out in the time that we get them out,” Christman said.

Many of the volunteers have been helping stock the creeks around Hickory Run for years. Martin Gehman came as part of a fishing club based in White Haven.

Gehman said the creeks at Hickory Run have their own population of wild trout, but the stocking makes fish more accessible for people who purchase fishing licenses.

“It brings the stock level up — so the people who pay the fishing license fees have something of size to catch, and numbers.”

Fishing has decreased in popularity in Pennsylvania if you measure it by the number of fishing licenses residents purchase. In 2018, the state sold 617,816 regular licenses — down about 5.5 percent from the previous year and 40 percent from the peak, which was in 1990.

The number of senior licenses sold is increasing though. Last year the state sold 22,746 licenses, up 4 percent from the previous year.

Schaeffer said that the number of licenses sold this year has been encouraging.

The volunteers said they are ready to get out and fish. Ron Schlosser recently moved back to the area and is looking forward to returning to local creeks.

“This is where I learned,” he said. “I am looking forward to this season.”