Pennsylvania’s Trout Stocking Problem

NO AI! The following text and images are all human-generated. No Artificial Intelligence was used in the creation of this article.

Prior to January 1st, 2024, stocking trout almost anywhere in Pennsylvania was as simple as driving to a private fish hatchery, laying down some cash for a truckload of trout, hauling them out to your local stream, and dumping them in. Pennsylvania was one of only 20 states in the country and one of only a handful in the Northeast that did not require any permit, let alone a notice of intent to stock. Initial discussions at the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission revolved around developing a permit in order to allow private individuals to stock fish within the commonwealth, but, after speaking with the aquaculture industry (private trout hatcheries and others), the state decided to water down the permit requirement and instead only require that private individuals file a “Notice of Stocking” instead.

For years, decades even, I’ve found myself running into stocked trout in places I didn’t expect them to be. The state has long published most of its stocking intentions publicly online and in publications, but I’ve found stocked trout strewn all about the Commonwealth in surprising places that didn’t seem to correlate with the stocking information the agency was publishing. Most alarming is the remoteness of some of the places I’ve found stocked trout. In my pursuit of brook trout, I routinely hike miles into remote forested areas to fish, and on one occasion that stands out to me, I ran into about 50-100 stocked rainbow trout in a beaver pond on state forest land about 2 miles from the nearest access point. Locals had an ATV trail cut through the woods so they could turn this public waterway into their own little private trout pond.

Now, stocked trout can swim just like any other fish, and they will swim great distances from where they’re stocked. A 2005 report by the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission documented a rainbow trout that swam 123.1 miles from where it was stocked in 16 days. https://pfbc.pa.gov/images/fisheries/afm/2005/4x05_18tele.htm But I’ve seen deliberately placed pods of stocked fish, in addition to lone travellers far from where they were stocked.

With the relatively newly passed Notice of Stocking law, I could finally obtain documentation on where some of this stocking is occurring. In early 2026, I filed a Right To Know request for all Notice of Stocking records filed with PFBC between 2024 (the first year of the new law) and 2025. The extent of documented private stocking shocked me. It’s very important to understand that there are likely more people stocking than is documented in these records. While PFBC has published information about the rule, I suspect that not everyone is in compliance. I personally know of one such location that was stocked last year by a private individual, and it isn’t represented in the data I was provided.

Key Findings

• 1,195,389 Trout were stocked in 2025 by private entities
• 5,541,855 fish (including trout) were stocked by private parties in 2025
• 3,624 Private Trout Stocking Locations in 2025
• 516 Stockings in 2025 were within 1 mile of a Class A brook trout stream or WTS
• 55 Entries in the 2025 NOS report list “Other” as the species stocked

Throughout the private stocking data, I found several concerning situations. There appear to be places where people are stocking streams that are not supposed to be stocked. There is stocking right at the mouths of Class A streams in sensitive areas. There is a surprising amount of private stocking on public land. There is location data that is clearly inaccurate, as it points to locations outside Pennsylvania or far from the stream listed in the notice. Moreover, the overwhelming takeaway is that, when combined with other stocking data, it paints a picture of a state overrun with the practice of stocking fish.

Looking at the image above, you can see numerous private stocking locations throughout the area (white dot with red outline). Concerningly, many of the stocking points are right at the mouth or downstream limits of Class A brook trout streams and Wilderness Trout Streams, functioning as a barrier to prevent brook trout from getting out of the tributaries. In Addition to the private stocking, there is a Cooperative Nursery right at the mouth of Birch Run (a Wilderness Trout Stream). Finally, note the number of stocked streams (orange lines) surrounding the Wilderness Trout Streams and Class A Brook Trout streams. As I mentioned above, stocked trout swim, and you can imagine those clean, clear brook trout streams are a likely destination for the stocked trout. Especially if the Kamloops rainbows listed in the NOS are what are actually being stocked. That strain is known for its ability to survive and reproduce in Pennsylvania.

Penns Creek

The private stocking bananza doesn’t stop at remote mountain brook trout streams either. The popular Penns Creek has numerous private stockings occurring in a relatively small area. Note that the stockings are occurring in the uppermost Class A section of Penns. PFBC recently gave the Executive Director (Tim Schaeffer) sole authority to grant Class A stocking exemptions. In the January 2025 Commission meeting, several of these Class A stockings were listed as exemptions for 2026. Some were listed as renewals of previous stocking exemptions, and some were listed as new exemptions. Apparently, these stockings on Penns Creek have been granted previously and continuously renewed through the stocking exemption process. Unlike in prior years, after the policy change in 2025, the public is notified of these exemptions only AFTER they’ve been approved by the executive director.

Note that no name was provided for the party responsible for stocking Penns Creek. Private entities’ names were redacted from the data I was provided; however, Cooperative Nursery stocking notices were not redacted. Additionally, according to the Notice of Stocking report, the private stockings shown on the map above represent 1,110 “Kamloops” rainbow trout.

Spruce Creek

Spruce Creek is another well-known stream in the state, but usually for all the wrong reasons. Many have argued for decades that Spruce Creek should be designated as Class A and stocking prohibited. The few public sections of Spruce Creek are classified as Class A, but the rest of the stream is left as “Natural Reproduction” and heavily stocked by private entities. Angling in those few public sections on Spruce Creek usually results in several obviously stocked trout being caught. Again, the name of the party responsible for stocking on Spruce Creek was redacted from the Notice of Stocking reports. You’ll note that one of the stockings occurs on Warriors Mark Run, which is a Class A stream (green lines on the map above).

The stocking receipt for Warriors Mark Run lists 50 trout between 7 and 12 inches that were stocked there, which seems odd, since these streams are publicly known to be used for trophy trout angling on private property for a fee. The rest of the stocking on Spruce Creek represents 1,785 trout, including Brook Trout, Brown Trout, Kamloops Rainbow Trout, and Brown Trout.

Curiously, no trout stocking is shown in the Little Juniata, even near the mouth of Spruce Creek or just downstream of its confluence.

Young Womans Creek & Public Land

As mentioned above, there is a surprising amount of private stocking on public land. Looking at the left branch of Young Womans Creek in Clinton County, you can see numerous private stocking locations. The white circles with red stars around them are points that correspond to Class A stream extents, as determined when I analyzed the GPS coordinates of the stocking receipts against publicly available Class A GIS data. The dark maroon color represents state forest land (Sproul State Forest).

While trout stocking occurs in State Forests across the state, it seems wrong to me that private individuals should be permitted to stock privately acquired trout on public land. While there are supposed to be checks and balances in place to prevent fish infected with disease from being sold in private hatcheries, history has shown that the system isn’t always perfect. A gill lice outbreak in 2018 in Northcentral PA was traced back to local clubs. Because there was no official record of who stocked what, it was impossible to determine where the infected brook trout actually came from.

Note that the Notice of Stocking data provided also included stockings by Cooperative Nurseries, and some of the data shown in these maps includes Co-op stockings. One way the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission has been able to offset the increased costs of stocking is by using clubs to carry out much of the work. They use volunteer labor at these clubs to raise the trout in their own private hatcheries and then stock them. While the volunteers might think they’re doing some great service, it’s really just a way to offload labor costs from the PFBC.

Mouths of Class A Streams

As mentioned above, a lot of the stocking locations are right at the mouths of Class A streams. In the example below, you can see that the stocking location provided (based on GPS data, not descriptions) shows trout stocked within the limits of a Class A stream (Salt Run).

Again, in the image below, a stocking is shown right at the edge of a Class A boundary. If you look closely, you’ll also notice that there is a hatchery right at this location. This is a common theme, as shown above on the E Fork Sinnemahoning. Usually, streams in close proximity to these hatcheries (private or co-op) tend to get stocked, and in a lot of cases, these are Class A streams. I’ve personally encountered stocked trout in a Class A stream that were stocked above a large impoundment directly in the Class A section. So the people doing the stocking don’t always respect the Class A boundaries.

The image below shows Mountain Lick Creek, which is a Class A brook trout stream, and the stocking of brown and golden rainbow trout right at the lower limit of the Class A stream. Studies have shown that these downstream areas are crucial for brook trout in the winter and that brook trout routinely travel between tributaries in larger rivers. The stocking of these areas functions as a barrier to brook trout movement and increases the likelihood of nonnative trout establishing reproducing populations that compete with the brook trout in the streams above.

Stocking Important Brook Trout Watersheds

In 2016, Trout Unlimited, along with researchers and the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture, published a number of informative maps and associated scientific papers documenting the status of brook trout across the Eastern native range. Part of that data was a collection of “patches” (watersheds, subwatersheds, or collections of watersheds represented by geographic areas) with their associated salmonid species. There were “allopatric” patches and “sympatric” patches throughout the native range. Allopatric patches are areas that contain only brook trout, with no other salmonid species present.

Numerous scientific papers have documented the negative effects of non-native trout on brook trout. So allopatric patches are very important for the long-term survival of the species. One of the biggest issues facing brook trout in Pennsylvania is the fragmented nature of our brook trout populations.

I used the 2016 data (note that EBTJV has published an updated range-wide assessment in 2024, but I have been unable to obtain the underlying data) and imported the Notice of Stocking receipts into a map of the allopatric brook trout patches. The 2016 data show a total of 655 allopatric brook trout patches in Pennsylvania (blue areas on the maps above/below), and the NOS data show an overlap of 98 stocking locations.

One of the most alarming findings from this analysis is the presence of private stocking of brook trout in these allopatric brook trout patches. Stocking hatchery brook trout in wild brook trout streams can introduce genes to the wild population that put the population at risk. It’s also worth noting that all patches with private stocking mean the introduction of non-native species, so those patches really shouldn’t be considered “allopatric” if people are introducing non-native trout. In the map below, there are four private stocking locations located within allopatric brook trout patches. In this one small area, 4 of 12 allopatric brook trout patches have private stocking of nonnative trout.

The map below illustrates another example of private stocking where brook trout and kamloops rainbow trout are being stocked. I suspect Kamloops rainbow trout are used due to their fighting and aerial behavior, but there are more than a few downsides to using them, especially in brook trout streams. They are aggressive, non-discriminatory eaters and exhibit strong territorial defence characteristics. They also seem to be quite capable of reproducing in the wild.

While the images below are somewhat beyond the scope of this article, I think it’s an important subject to cover with regard to allopatric brook trout patches. The first image below illustrates an allopatric patch with some portion on public land, meaning the patch is available to anglers. Of the original 655 allopatric patches shown in the image at the top of this section, only 477 have some portion of the patch on public land.

The image below shows only allopatric patches that are wholly within public land. This is an issue that isn’t often considered when talking about Pennsylvania’s brook trout populations and their accessibility to anglers. While PA as a whole has a significant number of brook trout populations, they are fragmented and often not accessible to anglers. Most populations that are accessible to anglers often contain other trout species, and in some cases, the other trout species are far more prevalent than brook trout. There are only 54 Allopatric brook trout patches that exist entirely on public land. What is extremely alarming is that of those 54 entirely public allopatric patches, 16 of them have private stockings listed in the 2025 NOS report.

Pennsylvania’s Brook Trout Stronghold

A recurring theme across all the data I’ve reviewed is that much of the stocking is occurring in one of the most important areas for brook trout in the state. Another part of the EBTJV rangewide assessment was ranking watersheds by priority score for brook trout conservation. This data illustrates areas of the state considered to be our brook trout stronghold. If you’re familiar with Pennsylvania and brook trout, it would be no surprise to find out that our north central region is our brook trout stronghold. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most popular fishing areas in the state and one of the areas that receives a significant number of stocked non-native trout.

On the map above, based on the 2016 EBTJV priority score data, the geographic areas shaded in red are the highest-priority watersheds, followed by orange, green, then yellow, then blue, and finally purple. The red dots indicate areas stocked by private entities, according to the 2025 NOS data.

Zooming in, the red patch in the top center is the Young Woman’s watershed. This is one of the most important brook trout strongholds in the state. Unfortunately, there is a lot of stocking of nonnative trout in the Young Womans Creek watershed. Recent property ownership disputes have put stocking in the left branch of Young Woman’s Creek in jeopardy. As of now, it appears that all stocking in the left branch will end. The map below shows the YWC watershed, with the center shaded in red; the stocked sections of the left-hand and right-hand branches of YWC are shown as orange lines (difficult to see, I know); and the red dots indicate private stocking as part of the NOS report.

Even without state-sponsored stocking or any other stocking, unfortunately, the YWC watershed has numerous streams with self-sustaining populations of nonnative trout (the result of decades of nonnative trout stocking). In the map below, the light yellow lines are Class A brown trout, magenta lines are Class A Mixed Brook/Brown Trout, and red lines are Class A brook trout. Note that Class A brook trout does not mean the stream is allopatric brook trout. It simply means that brook trout outnumber competing species, or that brook trout biomass exceeds 75% of the surveyed species biomass. In fact, within the red shaded (high priority) area in the YWC watershed, only 3 patches are listed as allopatric, and all three of them have a class A stream that is not composed entirely of brook trout (meaning other species are present and they are not in fact allopatric).

Restoration

The NOS report also documents several restoration efforts across the state. However, it’s worth noting that in 2024, of 4,473 NOS reports filed, only 43 were marked for restoration efforts, and 5 of them listed brown trout and rainbow trout. Only one restoration effort in 2024 was for brook trout. In 2025, there were 3,624 NOS reports filed, and only 56 were marked as restoration projects; however, 9 of those restoration projects listed brown trout and rainbow trout, with ZERO listed for brook trout. There’s really no such thing as restoration stocking of a nonnative species. The other restoration stockings listed were for native species like American Eel, American Shad, Yellow Perch, Crappie, and others.

The lone brook trout restoration effort (assuming it was done correctly) in 2024 is shown on the map below. The filer stated that 100 brook trout were stocked that were between 0 and 4 inches in length. This was reported in the 2024 data, but not in the 2025 data. There is no indication whether the fish used for stocking were genetically appropriate for this location.

Tropical Fish & Non-trout

In addition to trout stocking (and some other common fish like largemouth bass, panfish species, American Eels, and Shad), there were some eyebrow-raising species listed in the notice of stocking reports. Below is a list of species that were stocked, some in flowing water!

• Algae Eater – (No scientific name was provided)
• Rosey red minnows (fathead minnows)
• Israeli Carp (While not on the prohibited species list, it’s still not a great idea)
• Barramundi (I believe a permit is required to stock Barramundi, but I’m not sure why anyone would do this. They’re not going to live very long in Pennsylvania waters. These fish were apparently stocked in a lake in Bucks County.
• Koi – There were several locations that listed Koi for stocking in private ponds.

I was also surprised by the amount of stocking of Perch, Channel Catfish, Walleye, Golden Shiners, Crappie, and Bluegill throughout the state. Most of these stockings occurred in ponds, though some were listed in flowing waters and larger lakes.

Summary & Closing Thoughts

While the recent Notice of Stocking system is a vast improvement over the previous lack of any documentation requirements, there is still more that could be done. The Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission should have a stocking permit requirement that allows biologists to intervene or require changes to private stocking plans. Especially where competing species or brook trout are stocked in sensitive brook trout strongholds. The NOS records document a surprising number of brook trout stockings within wild brook trout streams across the state.

The NOS report also paints a picture of an alarming amount of private stocking. As noted at the beginning of the article, 1,195,389 Trout were stocked in 2025 by private entities. This is in addition to the more than 3 million trout stocked by the PFBC. To put things in perspective, the entire state of Idaho stocked roughly 600,000 trout in 2025.

Pennsylvania has relatively little public land, which is fragmented across the state, and no federal parks (all trout stocking in the Allegheny National Forest is managed by PFBC). The public land we do have doesn’t necessarily correlate to where brook trout live, either. Where public land and brook trout coincide, there is also significant stocking of nonnative trout. The north-central portion of Pennsylvania is a popular destination for anglers from all over the state.

According to a recent survey of Pennsylvania anglers, there is significant overlap between wild trout anglers and stocked trout anglers in the north-central part of the state. As more and more land is posted, competition for our public lands will continue to increase. In the same report, lack of access to fishing locations was listed by wild trout and stocked trout anglers alike. To date, Pennsylvania has no angling regulation to protect brook trout exclusively. A recent PFBC proposal would increase the statewide minimum harvest size limit to 9 inches. While this regulation would likely protect the vast majority of brook trout from harvest, it would also protect non-native brown and rainbow trout. Research has shown that nonnative trout typically outcompete brook trout, so without angling regulations to protect brook trout, its likely that they’ll continue to lose out to nonnative trout.

Pennsylvania needs to come to terms with the pressures on our natural resources, the increasing cost of trout stocking, and the continuing decline in license sales. The Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission needs to take the Notice of Stocking one step further by creating a stocking permit that allows fisheries managers to stop or modify private stockings when they might negatively impact native brook trout. Finally, the state needs to do more to educate the public on the importance of our native brook trout, how nonnative trout negatively impact them, and protect native brook trout with angling regulations tailored specifically to protect them against nonnative trout. Especially with such widespread nonnative trout stocking.