march, 1968 - Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission

SUCKERS
—OR TROUT?
BY MARCH THE WINTER sun is steadily melting away accumulations
of snow and ice that have held our streams and lakes locked in for
many weeks. As stream floivs increase, the lazy white sucker is stirred to
action and begins his annual move up countless small creeks.
The breaking of winters grip and the sure knowledge of the good
sucker fishing that awaits the hardy fisherman is a heady spring tonic for
young and old alike. Certainly the March icinds often are rate and chilling,
but the sun's warm rays are rewarding. Streams are cloudy and the
banks are usually muddy and disastrously slippery. Firewood is scarce
and burns ivith a sputtering hesitancy—but ivho cares if the good old
white sucker is on the move and ready to bite.
Few will disagree that a day's early spring sucker fishing is just what a
man needs to get himself set to meet all those springtime chores that
seem to fall due just when the fishing is best.
While the early spring toeeks provide ideal conditions for successful
sucker fishing there is some conflict on many streams where trout are
stocked.
One unfortunate circumstance that conflicts with early spring sucker
fishing is the presence of trout in most of the best sucker waters. By law,
streams stocked with trout are closed to all fishing from midnight March
14 to the opening hour of trout season in mid-April. A simple solution
would be to hold off all trout stocking at least through March. However,
our trucking fleet fust cannot cover the entire state in the remaining time.
And, of course, there are the areas where trout are stocked prior to the
closing period and quite readily grab sucker baits fished on the stream
bottom.
Admittedly, we do not have a complete answer to this dilemma so
that early season sucker fishermen can fish where and when the catching
is best without becoming hooked to a hungry trout. We are moving each
year toward later trout stocking in more waters and are specifically
listing areas for sucker fishing. Our greatest hope is to develop a workable
plan within the next year of opening sucker fishing in the mouths
and possibly first several hundred yards of trout streams emptying into
nontrout streams and lakes.
Such a plan, when finalized and put into effect, is going to do much
for Pennsylvania's fishermen—but is going to require a lot of cooperation
and forbearance from sucker and trout advocates alike.
—Robert J. Bielo, Executive Director