PA Trout Unlimited: College Students To Research Brook Trout On Route 6 Trek

By Charlie Charlesworth, PA Trout Unlimited President

During the summer of 2018, six college students from our PATU 5 Rivers clubs will spend a month trekking across Pennsylvania’s U.S. Route 6. Their purpose will be to explore, do research, collect data and still have time do a little bit of fishing in the Northern Tier’s famed brook trout breeding grounds.

They will be supported by the PA Fish and Boat Commission, three colleges including Mansfield University, Keystone College and hopefully the University of Pittsburgh-Bradford, National Trout Unlimited staff, and a plethora of Trout Unlimited chapter members from across the top of Pennsylvania.

When departing from each of those colleges, they’ll be given assignments by a committee set up in that region for data collection and research. The students will start at Keystone College in Lackawanna County and begin their trek on the New Jersey border, moving west until they receive their next set of instructions from the committee at Mansfield in Tioga County.

They will repeat the process heading west to Bradford in McKean County. In the final week they will head back to Keystone College to present their data and findings.

The committees at each location will include chapter volunteers, fisheries professionals from PFBC, full time National TU staff, professors from each college and a member from PATU Council.

This endeavor will be funded by sponsors and donors, which includes a major portion from PFBC.

It is our hope that these students will be able to use this project for an internship and also to help develop their capstone projects for graduation.

(Photo: Wildlife Biology students at Keystone College.)

(Reprinted from the Winter 2018 PA Council Of Trout Unlimited newsletter.  Click Here to sign up for your own copy.)