Re-published October 2026, originally published in Dark Skies Magazine.
Have you ever pondered what happens to a world-class fishery when the tap gets turned down to a trickle? Pennsylvania has stocked roughly 1 million Steelhead Trout into Lake Erie and her tributaries almost every year since 1990[1]. This spring, Pennsylvania stocked approximately 394,000 Steelhead Trout. That is not an ‘off’ year. That is not a normal variance. That is the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission (P.F.B.C.) telling you, in a quarterly report most anglers will never read, that the pipeline feeding your favorite fishery has been cut by more than half (60% decrease). P.F.B.C. built one of the finest Steelhead fisheries in North America over decades of investment. The part that should really bother you: there is no plan publicly available for the expansion of the Fairview Fish Hatchery.
I found PA Steelhead Association (PSA) through a strange twist of events. I had begun my deep-dive into all things fly fishing for Steelhead post-college courtesy of my immigrant grandfather. I had run into someone on the stream that told me about local author named John Nagy. After consuming Nagy’s Steelhead Guide cover-to-cover, I dug through google to find out as much as I could about a number of the guides and fly tyers mentioned in the book. From there, I was a sponge for local Steelhead knowledge. I have served on the Board of Directors for the PA Steelhead Association writing the initial versions of the Steelhead Angler Survey posted on their website and social media pages. So, when I tell you the numbers are bad, I am not guessing — I am reading the same annual reports and Lake Erie Committee data that P.F.B.C.’s own biologists write. A false-positive V.H.S. (Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia) test at the Tionesta Hatchery forced P.F.B.C. to pull Steelhead rearing out of that facility entirely and consolidate everything at Fairview — a hatchery that, by P.F.B.C.’s own numbers, cannot rear even half of what Pennsylvania used to stock.
Angler feedback is critical to maintaining a world-class sport fishery. Many states mandate catch reports in order to best maintain their fisheries. Prior to the electronic survey available via PA Steelhead Association, there was a paper Lake Erie Cooperative Angler Log (L.E.C.A.L.) that anglers wrote in as they fished throughout the season. At the close of the season, logbooks were collected by the Lake Erie Unit of the PA Fish & Boat Commission so the data could be extracted and collected for analysis. Beginning in 2021, PA Steelhead Association launched their electronic Steelhead Angler Survey to the general public. The PA Fish & Boat Commission is quite pleased to receive the electronic survey data each May; it not only eliminates the need to decipher handwriting, but the answers fit neatly into a program designed to easily manipulate the information. Your comments asking for additional officer enforcement are not falling on deaf ears. Additionally, as we embark upon another Steelhead season, we can only hope for ideal weather conditions to activate as many fall-run Steelhead as possible. Whether you catch fish or do not catch fish, please fill out a Steelhead Angler Survey. For those of you concerned about the stream you are fishing being released to the public, I completely understand, and I suggest you write in the comments you do not want the stream disclosed publicly as a condition of providing your data. Elk Creek has a myriad of access points; I can think of multiple locations where there are only a handful. Angler feedback is critical to the biologists and decision-makers; dedicated Steelhead anglers fish locations the biologists do not sample, and crowd-sourced data costs almost nothing for both the anglers and the P.F.B.C. I believe that every angler that benefits from the Steelhead fishery should give back. Filling out a Steelhead Angler Survey is a simple way to aid your own future catches.
For further details on why PA is stocking under 500,000 Steelhead Trout annually, please click here to read, “PFBC to increase number of Erie steelhead being raised, new lighting coming to marina.” After the V.H.S. scare, it was determined all Steelhead Trout must remain in the Lake Erie Watershed. The only state hatchery located in Pennsylvania within the Lake Erie Watershed is Fairview Fish Hatchery; which only has capacity for approximately 500,000 Steelhead Trout. Did you read in that well-written prose that the Executive Director & team are ‘all in’ on the Steelhead fishery? Except, there is no projected completion date for expanding the Fairview Fish Hatchery. There is not a sufficient source of water or temperature cooling system to be able to rear 1,000,000 fish at the Fairview Hatchery property at this time. Based on observations made while guiding and the condition of stocked fish, I suspect the raceways are operating beyond their ideal capacity. Have you caught Steelhead without one or both pectoral fins? The rubbed off fin(s) are caused by over-packed raceways; unfortunately, this also increases the chance of disease. What happens if there is a deadly outbreak in the hatchery when all 1,000,000 Steelhead are reared in the same location? Back to square one? With all of the P.F.B.C.’s eggs in one basket, the hatchery managers salvaged a mere 394,000 smolts to stock in Lake Erie and her tributaries this past spring[2]. The P.F.B.C. does not publish data on return rates for Steelhead Trout because they do not track it. There is no data you can point to that will give you an approximate return percentage from that 394,000 that were stocked; there are no fish counters installed in any of the tributaries, not even our broodstock ‘weirs’ such as Trout Run. All data cited is publicly available please check footnotes[3].
Since 2020, there has been nearly a 60% decrease in the amount of Steelhead smolts being stocked. To say things are at an inflection point is putting it mildly. One easy way to help from afar is to contact your local legislators and ask that they push for a completion deadline for Fairview Hatchery’s expansion and clarify if there is sufficient funding to achieve the hatchery expansion. I am going to give you some thoughts to have in mind, but I encourage you to make your own statement with your own personal anecdotes. Calling your local representatives’ office to speak with staff or the elected official is both your right as a constituent and much easier than you may realize. First, you need to find out who your local legislators are; via one of two of the state’s webpages. The first, is https://www.palegis.us/senate/members, where you can find your senator by county. Now, before you feel a hint of hesitation, know this, as an elected official they are there to listen, help, and serve. That is how they get re-elected! The second is https://www.palegis.us/house/members. If we go back to Schoolhouse Rock, ala-I’m Just A Bill, you will remember that the House and the Senate form the legislature, and that a bill must pass both houses in order to possibly be signed into law. For Pennsylvania, when our legislature passes a bill it goes directly to our governor’s desk to possibly be signed into law. So, what am I asking you to say to your local representative when you call their office? I would like you to say what Steelhead fishing means to you. How important is it for you to take your kids to Elk Creek for some weekend chrome? Did your Dad introduce you to this in the 90s? Are you a fly shop that depends on selling thousands of Three-Loop Pink Lady’s and Little Precious’? Personally, I like the mysterious fraction of time that my line goes slack before a giant Steelhead Trout erupts from the waters it was just dancing in. I like seeing someone’s face that just released their very first steelie. The satisfaction. The utter glow of having achieved a dream. In less romantic terms, I like having fish to catch, and at the current downtrend, that will not be for much longer. The next people to call are not your local legislators, but the committee members that oversee fish and game in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Again, there is a house committee and a senate committee. I recommend calling the Harrisburg office of both Committee Chairs and voicing your concern that the Steelhead fishery is not scheduled to be returned to order. Ask when Fairview Fish Hatchery will be able to rear 1 million fish. Also, shoutout to Senator Dan Laughlin of Erie for introducing a bill to increase fines for snagging, I wish Senator Rothman, Committee Chair, would get it on the committee schedule for a vote.
Okay, you called multiple offices and talked to someone on their staff. Give it a week or two and see if anyone reaches back out to you. If they do not return your call, I recommend calling their respective offices and ask if they have any further information for you. It is possible that the technology does not yet exist to allow Fairview Hatchery to expand operations, but there has been no public information readily available on the project’s progress, or lack thereof.
How else can you help the fishery? Buy a ‘button’ supporting 3CU Trout Association. This cooperative nursery rears approximately 75,000-100,000 Steelhead and Brown Trout annually for release into Erie County streams. Buttons are available for sale at FishUSA Pro Shop, Poor Richard’s, East End Angler, and from other volunteers across Erie County. If you live in Erie, consider joining the PA Steelhead Association. If 3CU ever needs help improving raceways, feeding fish, or stocking fish the PA Steelhead Association is who will post notification to members. Additionally, earlier this year the PSA sent a letter to Executive Director Tim Schaeffer of the P.F.B.C. lobbying for protection of our existing Steelhead fishery. If you have a passion for Steelhead and advocacy, please consider joining whether you live in Erie or not. PSA and the Northwest Chapter of Trout Unlimited member Jim Pfendler gave a presentation on the need for stream improvements in Erie County; the P.F.B.C. is very much in agreement and improvement work has been planned for a number of stream sections. If you are interested in stream improvement and restoration work please contact the Northwest Trout Unlimited Chapter; their website can be found here. The Northwest Trout Unlimited Chapter also has a pending grant application for an improvement project on Elk Creek. Although the firehose-style stocking of Steelhead is currently a trickle you can still make an immediate impact by working to improve existing stream sections. Regardless, as long as we get the rain the fish will come, fewer of them, but ascend we will!
[1] chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.glfc.org/pubs/lake_committees/erie/CWTG_docs/annual_reports/CWTG_report_2004.pdf
[2] https://www.pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/fishandboat/documents/about-us/reports/strategicplans/2026-q1-quarterlyreport.pdf