Erie is known for its steelhead trout in the fall and winter, but large brown trout are out there, too.
Compared to the 1 million steelhead that the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission release into Lake Erie tributaries each year, there are only about 100,000 brown trout.
“While they don’t have the blazing speed of a steelhead when hooked, it’s always a thrill when that buttery spotted side flashes in the sun and you see that hooked jaw violently shaking back and forth, sending bolts of lightning thumping through your rod. They look ancient, from another time, and even though they didn’t evolve with the dinosaurs, you can envision that they did,” said Karl Weixlmann, Erie fly fishing guide for more than 25 years, in an email.
Volunteers work most of the year to help raise fish to supplement what’s provided by the Fish and Boat Commission. Ron Dombrowiak, president of the Wesleyville Conservation Club, said his group raises between 20,000 and 27,000 brown trout.
He’s also the president of the 3-C-U Trout Association that will raise an additional 25,000 this year. Next year, it has plans to raise more fish. The 3-C-U club started raising trout in 1966, and the Wesleyville club started in 1946. About 2010, he said they went to raising only browns at Wesleyville.
The clubs receive fingerling size trout early each summer from the Fish and Boat Commission, then about 10 volunteers tend to the fish each day until they are 11 to 14 inches long. The fish are then released into the tributaries of Lake Erie.
“It’s like a cycle. We stock the fish, clean the raceways out and start all over again,” Dombrowiak said.
When the fish are stocked in the tributaries in April, it only takes a couple days before they swim downstream to Lake Erie, he said.
“For every 10 steelhead raised, there’s only one brown raised. The odds of catching one are a lot less,” he said, so anglers are excited to catch a brown one.
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Browns vs. steelhead
Steelheads grow a little bigger than brown trout, “but browns are pretty heavy, they get fat,” Dombrowiak said.
The fish stay in Lake Erie during the summer months to feed then return to the small creeks each fall during the spawning season. To reel them in, it’s a tug of war with brown trout. They swim deep into the water, he said. “They fight real good.”
Brown trout feed similarly to a steelhead: nightcrawlers, worms and artificial baits like flies and lures work well, he said.
But he doesn’t eat trout. He raises them and catches them for the fun of it, then he lets them go. He said most people do the same.
For those who do eat fish, anglers have told him the brown trout tastes better than the steelheads.
There are 145 sponsor organizations maintaining 166 nurseries across the state. They raise about a million trout each year to stock in public waters across the state.
“They are out there every day taking care of the fish. They do it because they love it and want to do it,” said Brian McHail, Cooperative Nursery Unit leader for the Fish and Boat Commission. “They do a wonderful job. They are out there when it’s below zero or when it’s snowing, when it’s raining, when it’s hot out.”
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“What we do every year costs us money. What we need is help, volunteers,” Dombrowiak said.
Donations to help the volunteers raise trout can be mailed to 149 Chase Road, North East, PA 16428 in care of the Wesley Conservation Club or 3-C-U. Call 814-323-3820 for more information or to volunteer.
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Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at bwhipkey@gannett.com and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on your website’s homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook @whipkeyoutdoors.
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