Yesterday I encountered a bit of heartache and hassle. Here in Pa of course we have trout permits. We also have special delayed harvest streams that regulate the type of baits used, basically nothing alive.
Well, I decided to hit up one of these streams yesterday for smallmouth. It's underneathe a man made lake and the bass have intergrated into this small stream along with the trout the state stocks every year. Well, I went down to this stream, parked, grabbed my rod and took off into the woods. Well I met a very nice F&G officer along the way who decided to question me and check my license. He informed me that even though I was intentionally using bait designed to catch smallmouth, which he confirmed are in fact in that stream and are decent sized, I wasn't allowed to even be there without a trout permit because of the regulations. He didn't ticket me or cite me but I had to leave and go back to the river.
He told me I could go add the trout stamp to my lincese and come back but I refuse to pay the fee, granted it's only $8, I don't feel it's fair to make me get a stamp for trout when I have no intention of ever fishing for them just because of some regulation on a stream that has reportedly decent smallie fishing.
I'm going to end up writing a letter to the state protesting this regulation. Why do I, a game fisherman, get punished for not buying into trout stocking.
Anybody else here ever run into a situation or issue like this? What are people's thoughts? Is it fair?
