Outdoors: Trout stocking to start next week in Cumberland County | Outdoors

Volunteers are welcome to help distribute the fish at all stockings, so long as they keep the safety of commission employees and other volunteers in mind, obey traffic laws, and stay home if they are not feeling well.

The preseason stocking schedule here lists the waterway, date of stocking and time and meeting place. All fish to Cumberland County are coming from the Huntsdale State Fish Hatchery in Carlisle, the meeting place for many of the stockings.

• Big Spring Creek: March 18, 9:15 a.m., Huntsdale; April 12, 9:30 a.m., Newville Post Office; May 12, 9:30 a.m., Newville Post Office.
• Children’s Lake: March 24, 9:30 a.m., Boiling Springs Post Office; April 8, 9:15 a.m., Huntsdale.
• Doubling Gap Lake: March 22, 9:15 a.m., Huntsdale; April 8, 9:15 a.m., Huntsdale.
• Fuller Lake: March 23, 9:15 a.m., Huntsdale; April 8, 9:15 a.m., Huntsdale.
• Green Spring Creek: Feb. 22, 9:15 a.m. Huntsdale; May 12, 9:30 a.m., Newville Post Office.
• Laurel Lake: March 23, 9:15 a.m., Huntsdale; April 8, 9:15 a.m., Huntsdale; May 9 and Nov. 2, 9:30 a.m., Laurel Lake.
• Middle Spring Creek: March 18, 9:15 a.m., Huntsdale; April 12, 9:30 a.m., Huntsdale.
• Mountain Creek: March 21, 9:15 a.m., Huntsdale; April 7, 9:15 a.m., Huntsdale; May 9, 9:30 a.m., Laurel Lake.
• Opossum Lake: Feb. 25, 9:15 a.m., Huntsdale; April 18, 9:15 a.m., Huntsdale.
• Yellow Breeches Creek: March 2, 9:30 a.m., Boiling Springs Post Office; March 12, 9:30 a.m., Boiling Springs Post Office; March 25, 9:15 a.m., Huntsdale; April 25, 9:30 a.m., Boiling Springs Post Office, April 29, 9:15 a.m., Huntsdale; May 6, 9:30 a.m., Boiling Springs Post Office; May 11, 9:30 a.m., Boiling Springs Post Office.

You can check out the entire Pennsylvania stocking schedule on the FishBoatPA mobile app and website www.fishandboat.com.

The statewide Mentored Youth Trout Day will be Saturday, March 26, and statewide Opening Day will be the first Saturday in April (April 2).

Anglers must keep in mind that it is illegal to fish in lakes and streams designated as stocked trout waters from the day stocking starts, Feb. 21, until the opening minute of the regular season, unless the waters are included in the stocked trout waters open to year-round fishing program.

In all, the commission will stock about 3.2 million trout into 696 streams and 128 lakes. The breakdown is rainbow trout (2.2 million), brown trout (686,000), and brook trout (293,000). The average length will be 11 inches.

About 70,000 brood fish, between 14 and 20 inches, will go in, as will 13,000 highly prized golden rainbow trout that go about 1.5 pounds.

Co-operatives across the state, including the Yellow Breeches Anglers Association, will add about 1 million fish.

The Yellow Breeches Anglers and Conservation Association will present its 50th annual outdoor sports show on March 19, at the St. Patrick Parish Activity Center, 85 Marsh Drive, Carlisle.

The event, starting at 8 a.m., will feature speakers on hunting and fishing topics, vendors, artists, craftsmen, guide services, and conservation groups. Tours of the trout nursery will also be conducted. There will be food, raffles and door prizes. Children’s activities will include fly tying and a photo booth.

Admission is $3 for adults. Children 12 and under, active military and first responders get in free.

Bear hunters in Pennsylvania had solid success in 2021.

A harvest of 3,659 bears ranks as the state’s fifth-best ever and second-most since 2011.

The all-time harvest occurred in 2019, when 4,653 bears went down.

In Cumberland County, hunters took eight bears, compared to six in 2020. The take in Franklin County was 17, down from 31 in 2020. Other tallies in south-central counties were (2020 numbers in parentheses): Huntingdon, 115 (91); Bedford, 82 (82); Mifflin, 55 (30); Fulton, 47 (51); Perry, 42 (36); Blair, 39 (29); Juniata, 36 (35); Snyder, 12 (20); Adams 10 (7); and York, one (0).

Bears were taken in 59 of 67 counties and 22 of Pennsylvania’s 23 Wildlife Management Units in the 2021 seasons. Lycoming County gave up 212 bears to rank first. The largest bear was a 722-pound male taken with a shotgun in the extended season, on Dec. 4, in Letterkenny Township in Franklin County, by Wade Glessner of Shippensburg.

According to the Pennsylvania Game Commission, the heaviest bear ever taken in Pennsylvania was an 875-pounder harvested in 2010 in Middle Smithfield Township, Pike County. Since 1992, seven black bears weighing at least 800 pounds have been lawfully harvested during Pennsylvania hunting seasons.

I am honored to have been re-appointed to another four year-term to serve on the board of the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission.

I am there to embolden the commission’s mission of “Resource First” and to do it representing anglers and boaters in Cumberland and surrounding counties in south-central Pennsylvania. That means your input and thoughts are important.

My email address is tacked on to the end of this column every month.

Use it if you have thoughts, comments or suggestions relating to fishing and boating and aquatic critters in Pennsylvania.