Steelhead experts in Erie believe anglers should expect to see large, heavy fish this fall and winter as the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission works on a plan to get back to stocking 1 million fish each year.
Steelhead trout are starting to swim out of Lake Erie into small tributaries in anticipation of the spawning season.
This year, the Fish and Boat Commission reduced its annual stocking by about 20% as it works on a plan to raise more fish solely in the Lake Erie water basin.
“This year, the numbers were a little lower for steelhead that we put in the tributaries of Lake Erie. It’s normally around a million. We usually shoot for that. This year it was just a little under 800,000,” said Brian Niewinski, director of the Bureau of Hatcheries.
The decrease in stocking won’t be noticed by anglers for a couple years as it takes at least two years before the steelhead grow to the size to spawn and return to the creeks.
“We didn’t want to do less. We would have loved to keep at one million,” Niewinski said, add the reason for the decline was health concerns regarding moving the fish.