Keith Lusher 08.19.26
Beginning next year, Pennsylvania trout anglers will have to throw back fish they have legally been allowed to keep for more than four decades.
The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission has approved a new statewide minimum size limit for trout, increasing the legal harvest length from 7 inches to 9 inches beginning Jan. 1, 2027.
It marks the first change to Pennsylvania’s minimum trout size in 43 years. The state last increased the limit in 1983, when it moved from 6 inches to 7 inches.
While the new regulation applies to trout statewide, fisheries managers say one of the primary reasons for the change is to provide additional protection for Pennsylvania’s wild brook trout.
Over the past decade, PFBC biologists surveyed nearly 3,000 stream sections and collected almost 200,000 wild brook trout. Only about 6.5 percent, or roughly 13,000 fish, measured 7 inches or longer and would have been available for legal harvest under the current regulation.
Moving the minimum to 9 inches changes that dramatically.
PFBC Chief of Fisheries Management Dave Nihart said less than 1% of the wild brook trout collected during those surveys would have been large enough to legally harvest under the new rule. In other words, the 9-inch minimum will protect more than 99 percent of the wild brook trout represented in the agency’s survey data.
Commissioner Eric Hussar said protecting those larger fish could also benefit wild populations because the brook trout that manage to reach those sizes have already proven themselves to be survivors.
“They have the best genes, they live long enough for whatever reason to get that big,” Hussar said.
The change also appears to have strong support among Pennsylvania trout anglers. In the PFBC’s 2023 Pennsylvania Trout Angler Survey, 85 percent of respondents said they supported increasing the minimum size to 9 inches to provide additional protection for wild brook trout.
For anglers who enjoy keeping stocked trout for the table, however, the new regulation isn’t expected to make much difference.
The average trout raised at PFBC state fish hatcheries and stocked into public waters measures about 11 inches, already two inches longer than the new minimum. Most cooperative nurseries also produce trout of a similar size.
The commission also approved a formal statewide definition for measuring fish. Under the new definition, a fish is measured while lying flat on its side with its mouth closed, from the forward tip of the jaw or snout to the farthest point of the tail with the upper and lower tail lobes squeezed together.
For Pennsylvania trout anglers, the biggest change arrives Jan. 1, 2027. From that point forward, any trout shorter than 9 inches will have to go back in the water.
