Can it be that the 2008 trout season has really passed? Is it already time to look into the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission's 2009 trout management program? Last year was wonderful for trout fishing, and it appears that 2009 will be another great year. Some minor tweaking may take place, but most major changes are still a while into the future.

On the minds of most trout anglers, the biggest question is how many fish will they catch.

And how large will they be?

Tom Greene, PFBC Coldwater Unit Leader, said, "As far as I know, we're going to be pretty close to what we were last year."

Trout averaging about 11 inches are the results of a decision made with the general approval of the fishing public to stock larger trout, but slightly fewer ones.

Trout stocking is limited by a specified biomass -- that is, the total weight of all the trout, rather than by their numbers. The reason for this is that biomass determines the amount of effluent, the waste produced by trout, discharged from our hatcheries.

Rapidly growing trout produce a great deal of effluent, which ends up back in streams. Too much effluent makes streams excessively fertile. Though that may sound like a good thing, it actually can kill streams.

Also, remember that anything affecting a stream affects every waterway downstream. For example, too much effluent into Fishing Creek adds to the fertility of the Susquehanna River, which adds to the fertility of Chesapeake Bay.

Pollution comes in many forms. Some substances, like mercury, are toxic while others can be called fertilizers. The right amount of fertilizer is a good thing. Too much is deadly!

About 3.2-million adult trout will be stocked. This includes any trout that may be purchased from sources other than our state fish hatcheries.

During recent years, the state has purchased rainbow trout from a source in Tellico, N.C. Trout are also acquired from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's hatchery at Lamar, which provides about 100,000 brook trout and rainbow trout annually.

Previously, the Allegheny National Fish Hatchery provided brook trout for stocking into Allegheny National Forest streams, but this hatchery had to be closed a few years ago and has not yet come back on line.

The only thing now holding it back is federal funding. About $2 million is needed for an aeration tower to remove nitrogen and radon gasses and add oxygen. If and when this hatchery comes back on line, according to hatchery manager Tracy Copeland, it will probably stick to its primary function of raising lake trout for Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

FISH DISEASES
Even with the most modern precautions, disease outbreaks are a constant threat. After all, it was an outbreak of infectious pancreatic narcosis (IPN) that shut down the Allegheny National Fish Hatchery, thus depriving anglers of the 100,000 brook trout that it had been contributing to streams in the Allegheny National Forest -- as well as the 660,000 lake trout that it was stocking into Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

During 2008, another disease became a major news item. It affected numerous species in all of the Great Lakes states including trout and, perhaps more importantly, one of the favorite trout baits.