The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) is giving an inside look at how it keeps one of its most unique fisheries going strong year after year.  Today, volunteers helped to collect hundreds of steelhead (a large form of Rainbow Trout) from the PFBC’s Trout Run nursery water along Lake Erie in Fairview Township.  The stream is protected from fishing, but it’s filled with huge steelhead trying to get upstream to spawn. Once netted, male and female fish are separated and sedated so that eggs and milt can be collected.  The adult fish are unharmed in the process and are returned to Lake Erie, while the eggs will be taken to the nearby Fairview State Fish Hatchery, where they will hatch.  After about a year, the small steelhead, known as smolts, are then stocked into the many tributary streams along Lake Erie, where they will imprint on the water as if they were born there naturally.  They will then swim out to Lake Erie to grow into adults, and after about 2 to 3 years, the large steelhead will follow their natural instinct to return to their home stream to spawn, which is what creates the world-class steelhead run each fall and winter.  The PFBC aims to produce about one million steelhead annually to sustain the fishery and ensure good numbers of fish return to the tributaries each year.  It is estimated that steelhead fishing generates about $11 million dollars in economic impact annually for Erie County.

More information on Pennsylvania’s steelhead program is available on the PFBC website.