Pennsylvania Wild Trout Streams
Pennsylvania has some of the best documented wild trout streams in the NE US. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boating Commission (PAFBC) publishes comprehensive lists of wild trout streams. This includes Class A Wild Trout waters which are defined as "Streams that support a population of naturally produced trout of sufficient size and abundance to support a long-term and rewarding sport fishery." All are managed as wild fisheries, without stocking.
In 2005, 457 stream sections were thus classified, representing more than 1,355 linear miles of stream. The map above is a low resolution map created by overlaying a web GIS view of wild trout streams (see below) provided by the PAFBC on top of a base map created on NationalAtlas.gov. A higher resolution version can be found here.
A list of these streams can be found at:
http://sites.state.pa.us/PA_Exec/Fish_Boat/classa98.htm
In addition, PA recognizes a smaller number of "Wilderness Trout Streams". These are defined as follows:
Wilderness trout stream management is based upon the provision of a wild trout fishing experience in a remote, natural and unspoiled environment where man's disruptive activities are minimized. Established in 1969, this option was designed to protect and promote native (brook trout) fisheries, the ecological requirements necessary for natural reproduction of trout and wilderness aesthetics. The superior quality of these watersheds is considered an important part of the overall angling experience on wilderness trout streams. Therefore, all stream sections included in this program qualify for the Exceptional Value (EV) special protected water use classification, which represents the highest protection status provided by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
A list of these streams can be found at:
http://sites.state.pa.us/PA_Exec/Fish_Boat/wild98.htm
Finally, the state publishes a complete list of some 1,500 streams (including the Class A and wilderness streams) that support naturally reproducing populations of trout. These are here:
http://www.fish.state.pa.us/Fish/trout_repro2005.pdf
Finding Streams - PA Stream Maps
Two mapping resources provided by the state. Neither is perfect, but they're worlds better than the resources provided by most other eastern states.
A county by county guide starts here:
http://sites.state.pa.us/PA_Exec/Fish_Boat/map/pfbcmaps/state.htm
These are county road maps annotated with fishing and boating activities. Most of the Class A trout streams are marked.
Much cooler is a GIS viewer that will display stream segments that support wild trout. They've been improving it steadily over the last few months, and it's now pretty good. I found it doesn't work at all with Mozilla, so you'll need to use IE:
http://sites.state.pa.us/PA_Exec/Fish_Boat/gis.htm
Basically, you start with a map of PA, and you zoom into an area of interest. Make sure the "Wild Trout" layer is checked in the "Show Layers" dialog:
If you check the "topo map" layer (in the Show Layers menu), the system will overlay a topo map when you zoom in enough:
If you then select the "Info" menu, you can click on a stream and learn more about it:
Then you can click on the "Mapquest" button to get an area road map... Note that Mapquest gives you the Longitude and Latitude of the point you clicked. You can use that in Google Earth, or to locate the stream in a better mapping viewer like Topozone or MapCard that let you print better topo maps.
Also, if you do go out exploring these streams, I strongly urge you to investigate the power of the NHD Geo Database. You can view the same streams online:
It will allow you to create your own, detailed road maps to make finding these streams easy. A small segment is shown below:
A full scale sample is found here. (Make sure you zoom in on the image in the Acrobat Reader to see the full resolution).
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