The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission posted the largest recorded fish caught in Pennsylvania 2008. The interesting thing to me is the brown trout list – 4 out of 5 on the list were caught in Lake Erie Tribs. The largest, a 13-lb, 30-inch Brown was caught Jan. 19, 2008 on Walnut Creek.
See the full list at the PA Fish Commission Site, PA’s Biggest Fish of 2008.
Is this a new trend? Well, I looked at the list of biggest fish back through 2001 – and based on this not so exhaustive literature search – it is a new thing. There are no other years in that time span with such a preponderance of the largest recorded browns coming from Lake Erie Tribs. However in 2005 four of five of the largest browns came from Lake Erie itself.
The brown trout showing up in Erie and its tributaries in Pennsylvania is incidental – a result of stocking of adult trout in some of the tributary streams, and stocking by other states. It is not a result of an effort to develop this fishery. But that is changing.
The PA Fish Commission is on-board with developing a brown trout fishery in the Erie Tribs. No later than 2009, the PA Fish Commission — plans to begin stocking 50,000-100,000 brown trout each year in Lake Erie itself or its tributary streams.
Read a good article about this in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.
