Pennsylvania Trout Stocking Schedule 2026

Every sentence here comes from the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PA Fish and Boat), and each section names its sources. Updated .

The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) stocks trout all year. For 2026 it planned about 3.2 million adult trout for 684 streams and 130 lakes, and cooperative nurseries run by sportsmen's clubs add about 1.1 million more. Most of it happens in spring: preseason stocking from late February up to opening day, then in-season stocking, planned in 2026 to run through Memorial Day. A smaller fall and winter program runs from October to mid-December.

From PFBC: Trout Stocking, PFBC: 2026 Trout Stocking Schedules Now Available (29 January 2026), PFBC: Summary of the 166th Commission Meeting (27 April 2026) and PFBC: Fall and Winter Trout Stocking to Begin October 1 (29 September 2026).

The PA Fish and Boat trout stocking schedule

It lists the Commission's planned adult trout stockings by county, water by water in alphabetical order, with the date, the meeting place for volunteers and the species going in, across the preseason, in-season, fall and winter stockings. Pick the season, then a county from the list or the map. The dates come pre-filled and hide the year's earlier stockings until you move the start date back, and Print All Trout Stockings opens a copy to print once pop-ups are allowed. The tool itself warns that every stocking is subject to change without notice.

Open the PFBC Trout Stocking Schedule
  • PFBC Trout Stocking page: The Commission's own page for the program, with the map of Stocked Trout Waters, the year's program changes and the planned numbers by species.
  • 2026 Fingerling Trout Stocking Schedule: Fingerlings only: young trout, too small to keep, stocked to grow on in water that can hold trout all year, listed by water and week. More are added as they are scheduled, usually with a few last-minute stockings of surplus fish.
  • Cooperative Nursery Stocking Locations: Which waters each club in the cooperative nursery program stocks, and with which species, but not when. The clubs raise as much as a quarter of all the trout stocked in the state, and the Commission warns the list can lag behind changes.

From PFBC: 2026 Trout Stocking Schedules Now Available (29 January 2026), PFBC: Adult Trout Stocking By County, PFBC: Trout Stocking Help Guide, PFBC: Trout Stocking, PFBC: 2026 Fingerling Trout Stocking Schedule (PDF), PFBC: Cooperative Nursery Stocking Locations (PDF) and PFBC: Cooperative Nursery Program.

When Pennsylvania stocks trout

Preseason

Preseason stocking starts in the second half of February, the week of 16 February in 2026, and runs up to opening day, which in 2026 was Saturday 4 April. This is when the big fish go in. In 2026 the Commission planned about 72,000 trophy brood trout of 14 to 20 inches and about 18,000 golden rainbows averaging a pound and a half, with roughly three quarters of each stocked before opening day.

In-season

After opening day the same waters keep getting fish, and in 2026 the Commission planned to keep stocking hundreds of them through Memorial Day. About a quarter of the trophy brood trout and golden rainbows are held back for these in-season stockings.

Keystone Select waters

Sections of 24 streams get large trout, 14 to 20 inches, at 175 to 225 fish a mile, comparable to the state's best wild trout water, under Delayed Harvest Artificial Lures Only rules on all but one section. The 2026 plan put about 10,000 of these fish into the program. The large fish go in only during the spring stockings, when the most anglers are out. Sixteen of the 24 sections, the ones fished hardest in the fall, also get a fall stocking, and the Commission's October 2026 stockings include all 16.

Fall and winter

The 2026 fall and winter program runs from 1 October to mid-December: about 114,700 adult rainbow, brown and brook trout for 117 stream sections and lakes. October carries most of it, about 86,100 of those fish into 92 waters in 2026, with 25 lakes getting about 28,600 more in November and December. The Commission says those fish also make ice fishing where conditions allow.

From PFBC: 2026 Trout Stocking Schedules Now Available (29 January 2026), PFBC: Trout Stocking, PFBC: Summary of the 166th Commission Meeting (27 April 2026), PFBC: 2026 Pennsylvania Fishing Summary (PDF) and PFBC: Fall and Winter Trout Stocking to Begin October 1 (29 September 2026).

Rules on stocked water

  • Opening day is the first Saturday in April: 4 April in 2026, and 3 April in 2027 by the Commission's 2026 rulebook, which says its dates could still change. Mentored Youth Trout Day, when young anglers get a head start on the stocked water, is a week earlier.
  • Stocked Trout Waters close to fishing from 12:01 a.m. on the third Monday in February until 8 a.m. on opening day, which in 2026 meant 16 February to 4 April. Mentored Youth Trout Day is the exception, and so are waters in the Stocked Trout Waters Open to Year-Round Fishing program, though no trout may be kept from those until opening day.
  • Trout stocked in the fall and winter can be fished for straight away.
  • The Extended Trout Season, from 8 September 2026 to 14 February 2027, applies only to Stocked Trout Waters: three trout a day of combined species, at least 7 inches through 31 December and 9 inches after that, unless the water has special regulations. Keeping trout from any other water during it is prohibited.
  • From 1 January 2027 the statewide minimum size for keeping a trout rises from 7 inches to 9. The Commission expects little or no effect on keeping stocked trout, since its hatchery fish average 11 inches.
  • Anglers 16 and older need a fishing license and a trout permit to fish for trout and keep them. By the 2026 rulebook, fishing a stream or river designated as stocked trout water from 16 February to 31 May counts as fishing for trout, so the permit is needed there whatever you are after.

From PFBC: Board Approves Single Statewide Opening Day of Trout Season (25 October 2021), PFBC: 2026 Trout Stocking Schedules Now Available (29 January 2026), PFBC: 2026 Pennsylvania Fishing Summary (PDF), PFBC: Mentored Youth Program, 58 Pa. Code § 63.3: Fishing in Stocked Trout Waters, PFBC: Fall and Winter Trout Stocking to Begin October 1 (29 September 2026) and PFBC: Summary of the 167th Commission Meeting (27 July 2026).

How to hear about a stocking

  • Check the schedule often. Stockings get postponed and rescheduled for water temperature and hatchery logistics, and the Commission itself calls checking the schedule frequently the easiest way to know when and where.
  • The Commission announces each season's stockings in a news release, the spring schedule in January and the fall program in late September, and its newsroom page has a box to get the releases by email.
  • Or be there when it happens. Each stocking on the schedule has a meeting place for volunteers, and one to four people can simply turn up; larger groups arrange it ahead with their regional PFBC law enforcement office.

From PFBC: Fall and Winter Trout Stocking to Begin October 1 (29 September 2026), PFBC: 2026 Trout Stocking Schedules Now Available (29 January 2026) and PFBC: Newsroom.

Worth knowing before you go looking

  • Each year's schedule goes online at the end of January, less than three weeks before the first stockings: on 30 January in 2025 and 29 January in 2026.
  • A water stocked last year may not be this year. The Commission adds, extends, reinstates and removes waters every year for access, wild trout designations, water quality and dam work, and lists the changes on its trout stocking page.
  • The numbers are a plan. The Commission says the actual numbers stocked may change.

From PFBC: 2025 Adult Trout Stocking Schedules Available (30 January 2025), PFBC: 2026 Trout Stocking Schedules Now Available (29 January 2026) and PFBC: Trout Stocking.

Which day to fish it

The schedule says where the fish went in. Which day to go is a different question: the forecast scores each day of the week for trout at the water you pick, from its water temperature, the wind and the weather.

See the week for rainbow trout

Species guides: Rainbow Trout · Brown Trout · Brook Trout

Sources

Every sentence above was read on one of these pages, and a check re-reads each quoted line against the page it came from.

Spotted something out of date or plain wrong here? Tell us and we will check it.