Rough weather leads to decrease in Pa. fishing license sales; better fishing weather ahead

Fishing licenses in Pennsylvania are down 10-11% primarily because of the cold weather and high waters that greeted anglers over the start of trout season, but opportunities to catch freshly stocked trout continue.

Mike Parker, communications director for the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, said sales were trending about 2% higher than last year. However when weather changed in the beginning of April, fewer people purchased licenses for the April 6 first day of trout season.

In 2023, the agency sold 448,884 licenses and 397,782 trout and combination permits by April 21. This year anglers have purchased 401,875 licenses, a 10.47% decrease, and 353,602 trout and combination permits, a decrease of 11.11%.

“Historically we realize that weather has an impact on participation in outdoors activities,” he said. “Whether it caused some people to stay away on opening day this year and not purchase their license yet, it’s understandable,” he said.

There still was a strong turnout on opening day as there’s a social impact to that opening weekend.

“It’s an opportunity to get together with friends and family and oftentimes fishing success comes second,” Parker said about people adjusting to the weather conditions.

The National Weather Service reports water levels have been higher than average years. Barry Lambert, NWS senior meteorologist, said there was high water and some flooding in early April. In Williamsport, they received 5.3 inches so far this month. The normal for the entire month of April is 2.5 inches.

“It’s double the amount so far,” he said. “We got that all within the first week of April or so. That’s really elevated,” Lambert said. “There really wasn’t any snow melt impact from this. If there was, it would have been a lot worse,” he said about high waters in streams and lakes.

An avid angler agrees the water has been high, but that should lead to better conditions later in the year.

Tony Sobina, 69, Oil City, Venango County, has been fishing for close to 1,500 days straight.

“I was fishing in smaller water, anything to get out of the heavy stuff,” he said about high water conditions in early April.

Since then he’s had some good days when the water levels were fine.

“It’s really been hit or miss,” he said. “Perseverance and trying different things,” he said about not giving up on opportunities to fish.

“I know a lot of times when things are blown out, I will challenge myself to try and catch fish in bad conditions,” Sobina said. When the water is too high, he travels to different places to find a spot where the water is fishable.

The weather is unpredictable in the spring. Some years Sobina fished when the water was low in May.

“I think it’s a blessing when you see this much water this early,” he said. “It lends for better fishing for spring and early summer.”

More: Top fly anglers gather for reunion to show best flies and why they catch fish in Pa.

He encourages people to keep fishing despite what happened over the opening week of the season.

“I think May and June are two of the best months to be trout fishing,” Sobina said. “Go out and get your license and go fish because I think the best fishing is right ahead of us here.”

Stocked trout will move in streams when the water is high, but they're are still there.

“They don’t all just automatically get washed downstream. While the conditions may not have been ideal, the trout are still out there, we are still stocking,” Parker said.

“You may have to move around a little bit,” he said about finding fish in the streams that have been higher than normal. “That’s part of fishing."

The agency releases 3.2 million trout and its partnering volunteer sportsmen groups raise and stock another million trout in public waterways.

The numbers of fish are similar to past years.

“The size and color, within all the fish that we are stocking, are some the best results that we’ve ever seen. The basic stocked trout that we are putting out there is about 11 inches and about a half pound and we continue to put out tens of thousands of trophy fish,” he said.

During rainy conditions, anglers should be moving to different waterways to find places where the water levels are still good for fishing.

“There are a lot of things we can control. We can control how many fish we produce, we can control how big they are, we can control the number of streams that we put them in, but we can’t control how the weather may impact them,” Parker said.

For those who haven’t purchased their fishing license or trout permit yet, Parker said the agency hopes they do.

“There’s still plenty of season left and we’re still stocking,” he said.

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 this website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook @whipkeyoutdoors, and Instagram at whipkeyoutdoors.

This article originally appeared on The Daily American: How many fishing licenses are sold in Pennsylvania?