Fish and Boat Commission raises size limit for trout
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During its quarterly business meeting last week, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission gave final approval to a measure that will raise the minimum size limit for trout from 7 inches to 9 inches. This change will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2027.
The last time the size limit for trout was changed occurred back in 1983 when it was moved from 6 inches to 7 inches. In the course of my research, I was unable to learn just when or why the 6-inch size limit for trout was first established in Pennsylvania, but it likely had been in place for some time, probably since the 1920s or 30s or possibly earlier.
The minimum size increase for trout in 1983 was the result of data obtained during a statewide inventory and population surveys of trout streams. This effort was part of a progressive PFBC initiative known as Project Future, and it revealed remarkable details to fisheries managers about wild trout populations in Pennsylvania. One such fact was that a significant percentage of wild brook trout tended to be 7 inches or smaller in most streams.
Therefore, raising the minimum size limit for trout to 7 inches or larger would effectively protect a significant portion of wild brook trout throughout the state.
The current minimum size limit increase for trout is also intended to target wild brook trout. Extensive stream surveys over the past 10 years have shown that only about 6.5 percent of wild brook trout reach 7 inches or larger and subject to angler harvest. Rasing the minimum size limit to 9 inches will protect 99 percent of wild brook trout.
Of course, brook trout are the state fish of Pennsylvania and the only species of trout native to Pennsylvania. Our remaining wild brook trout populations in Pennsylvania are unique and valuable natural resources well worth receiving this extra measure of protection.
Prior to submitting the proposal to increase the minimum size limit for trout, PFBC fishery managers also conducted a public trout survey throughout the state. The results of that survey showed that 85 percent of respondents supported increasing the minimum size limit to 9 inches to support additional protection for wild brook trout populations.
Another interesting revelation of that survey was that harvesting trout is not important to most trout anglers in Pennsylvania. Sixty percent of anglers who fish mostly for stocked trout said that keeping trout was not important to them, while 78 percent of anglers who fish for wild trout don't consider keeping trout important to their fishing experience.
For those anglers who fish for stocked trout and like to keep a few fish to eat, the increased minimum size limit should have little or no impact on them. According to PFBC sources, the average size of the fish produced at the state trout hatcheries has been 11 inches for the past several years, which is well over the new 9-inch size limit.
Quite frankly, even a 9-inch trout is barely practical for eating, and you will probably need several of that size to make a meal for one person. And I really never understood the 6- or 7-inch size limit. Once you cut the head and tail off a trout that size, there is hardly enough meat left to justify having killed such pitiful little fish.
While this new regulation marks just the first time the size limit for trout has been tweaked in the past 43 and only the second time in the last 100 years, the daily creel limit for trout has been modified many times during the same period. The daily limit for trout was first set in 1925 at what now seems a rather generous 25 fish. For some perspective, daily limits for other species that were also set in 1925 include bass at 10, walleyes at 10. pickerel at 15 and muskellunge at 3.
The daily limit of trout was reduced to 20 in 1933. Sunday fishing had been made unlawful in Pennsylvania in 1978, but legislation passed in 1937 made Sunday fishing legal again. As might be suspected, there was a vocal group of anglers back then who expressed concern that opening our waterways to Sunday fishing would deplete many of our fisheries. Possibly that is the reason the daily limit of trout was again reduced to 15 in 1937 and then to 10 a year later in 1938. It also makes me wonder somewhat why it took almost 90 more years to make Sunday hunting legal in Pennsylvania.
As fishing became an increasingly popular pastime in the years following World War II, the daily limit for trout was reduced to eight. It remained at that number for another 48 years until the total was reduced to the current limit of five trout per day.
The commissioners also passed a formal definition on the proper measurement of a fish. That definition states, "Total length is defined as the greatest straight-line length as measured on a fish while laid flat on its side with its mouth closed from the most forward tip of the jaw or snout to the farthest extent of the tail with the upper and lower tail lobes compressed or squeezed together."