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In balmy weather, trout season has a busy start

By Tom Venesky tvenesky@timesleader.com
Sports Reporter

DENNISON TWP. — In the blink of an eye, something jerked Kathleen Palina’s fishing rod into Lake Frances.

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The opening day of trout season brought out a crowd to Lake Irena in Hazle Twp. Sunny skies and warm temperatures resulted in high turnouts at nearly every county stream and lake stocked by the Pa. Fish and Boat Commission.

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Frank Kost of Freeland drops a line into the Nescopeck Creek near the I-80 bridge in Butler Township on Saturday.

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Palina, of White Haven, was tending another pole several feet away when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw her other fishing rod slide out of its holder on the bank and into the water.

There was only one thing to do: jump in after it.

“I didn’t want to lose the rod and whatever pulled it in,” she said.

Palina waded into the lake a few feet, grasped the rod and felt the weight of something big on the end of the line. She had been at Lake Frances long before the 8 a.m. start for Saturday’s trout season opener, and had lost several fish in the morning and landed none.

But this time there was no way Palina was going to lose another one.

“It felt like a nice fish and I wasn’t going to let this one get away,” she said.

With both hands wrapped around the rod, Palina fell backwards onto the bank while reeling the fish in. A few seconds later, Palina pulled the fish onto shore and admired her first catch of the day – an 18-inch brook trout as round as a log.

It was 10:30 a.m., and Palina finally caught her first trout hours after many anglers on the lake already had their limits.

The trout had two hooks in its lip before Palina caught it, proof that at least two other anglers on the lake went home with a story about the big one that got away.

“A lot of people were catching trout right after 8 a.m., and then it got slow until this one hit,” Palina said.

Two anglers who braved the crowded conditions at Lake Frances and went home with a few trout were brothers Jack, 11, and Zachary Patterson, 10, of Moosic. They arrived at the lake with their father, Mike, at 7 a.m. and found a small opening on the shore despite the crowd.

Using live bait and grubs, the brothers caught and kept three 12-inch brook trout and let two smaller ones go.

“We’ve been coming here for four years and this is the most crowded I’ve ever seen it,” said Mike Patterson. “But this is a good place to take kids fishing and the people are very nice here. One guy next to us gave the kids his spot so they would have more room.”

Sunny skies and warm temperatures had something to do with the high turnout at nearly every Luzerne County stream and lake that was stocked by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.

By 6:15 a.m., anglers were already lining the banks of Wapwallopen Creek in Mountain Top and Nescopeck Creek in Dennison Township.

“The turnout is definitely higher than last year, and the weather was a big part of it,” said Waterways Conservation Officer Greg Kraynack, who patrols the southern half of the county.

By 10 a.m. Kraynack already had visited Nescopeck Creek, the Lehigh River and Frances Walter Dam. Fishing on the river was a bit slow, he said, but the other locations were producing trout.

In the northern part of the county, Waterways Conservation Officer John Cummings said the crowds on Harveys Creek, Harveys Lake and Moon Lake were large but not overbearing. Anglers lined the shoreline along Moon Lake while boats were prevalent at Harveys Lake.

On Harveys Creek, anglers were more spread out thanks to the float stocking conducted by the PFBC and the Nanticoke Conservation Club.

“The fish are spread out pretty good there, and so are the anglers,” Cummings said. “I’ve seen a lot of kids out and a lot of families, which is a result of the weather.”

While the weather was conducive for bringing anglers out, Cummings said it wasn’t ideal for fishing.

“A high pressure, clear day is a good day to be outside, but not the best to get the fish biting. It was a little slow on Moon Lake and Harveys Lake,” he said.

“If people want to have some luck (today), head out to Harveys Lake or Moon Lake right at dawn. There will be plenty of trout left.”

Back at Nescopeck Creek, Carl Stofka, of Hazleton, and his children, Angela, 10, and C.J., 13, weren’t having a problem finding trout in a section of the stream in Nescopeck State Park that was float-stocked.

By 11 a.m. the trio kept eight brown and brook trout and released several more. All the trout were in the 12-to-13 inch range.

“We’ve been moving around all morning because the trout are all over the place,” Carl Stofka said. “We come here every year because the scenery is nice, it’s well-kept and better for the kids.”

Cummings was out until midnight on Friday watching stocked locations for people trying to get a head start. He started his work day on Saturday at 5 a.m. patrolling his district and encountered few problems.

Kraynack said he also encountered few violations in the morning – with the exception of illegal camp fires along the Nescopeck, an angler using someone else’s license and a vehicle that had to be towed because it was parked in front of the boat turnaround area at Frances Walter Dam.

“The very first license I checked was a 20-year-old angler using his father’s license and trying to pass it off as his own,” Kraynack said.