CLEARFIELD – Volunteers from St. Marys, Rockton, Luthersburg, Kersey and the greater Clearfield area donated their time to stock over 8,500 brown trout fingerling (4 to 5 inches) into the West Branch of the Susquehanna River from Curwensville downriver to the Susquehanna Bridge Sunday afternoon.
Volunteers in canoes, kayaks, and johnboat used floating baskets to float and sometimes drag the baskets with their watercrafts in the low water while releasing the new inhabitants into riffles along the river basin. More volunteers helped on the shore by carrying the fish in buckets from the stock truck down to the waiting boats at numerous places in the river along route 879 and Hogback Road.
The Old Town Sportsman’s Club fingerling stocking is in its third year of a three-year commitment of implementing a brown trout fishery in the local river system. The club would like to thank all the volunteers who helped with last Sunday’s stocking; it couldn’t have been done without them.
The club would also like to recognize the financial contributors who financed this years stocking with grants and / or financial contributions of over $11,000:
Camille “Bud” George, D-74 Houtzdale, the Pennsylvnia Department Community and Economic Development, Reliant Energy / Shawville Power Plant, CNB Bank, and Clearfield County Commissioners: Rex Read, Mike Lytle and Mark McCracken. Plus the three-year sponsors of the raffle ticket fundraiser: Jim’s Sports Center, Blair Reese Photography, J. Duane Test Coin & Currency Appraiser, Blacker’s Florist, and Dotts Motors.
There is one more stocking this Sunday.
The second stocking will be Sunday (Steelers play 8 p.m. night game) meeting at 10 a.m. at the mouth of Moose Creek around Best Jewelers and WOK!W radio station.
More than 5,000 fingerling brown trout will need to be carried to the boats (or stocked directly into the river).
Stocking will start at Moose Creek and move to the other side of the river.
Old Town Sportsman Club has permission for the day to access the river using the R.J. Corman road along the river behind CVS. Please note permission to access the river was granted to the club by businesses and private property owners for the day of the stocking only.
With this being the final year of the three-year commitment, grants and / or contributions are being sought to have a river study done in 2008/2009. The club will continue to stock adult full-size trout in the spring as well as for their annual kids fishing derby in June.
Established in 1937, the Old Town Sportsman Club is a promoter for hunting, archery and fishing outdoor recreation in the Clearfield area. Information or yearly membership can be obtained by writing the club at P.O. Box 804, Clearfield, PA 16830 or contacting a club member. Local sporting goods stores also sell the club memberships.
For more information or to volunteer for the Sunday stocking, contact Terry Malloy at Jim’s Sports Center 765-3582 or via e-mail, Stacy Bressler at P.J. Bressler’s Bait & More 236-2502 or contact him through the Curwensville Lake Fishing Web site, or Dave McCracken at McCracken Canoe Rentals 765-1410.
Attached photo by Dan Morris
Volunteers carry brown trout from the stock truck down to canoes with float baskets attached to stock the small trout while floating down the river in “the narrows” section of Curwensville in the West Branch of the Susquehanna River on Sunday afternoon. Another stocking will take place this Sunday downriver from the Raftsman’s Dam starting at 10am.
