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Mar 6, 2026 By Ben Moyer 5 min read

After our winter of 2025-26, spring pursuits are on the minds of most western Pennsylvanians. For some that means gardening; it’s hiking for others, or even the simple pleasure of mowing the lawn. But when many in this region think toward spring, they fantasize about fishing for trout.

To nurture that allure of fishing in children and youths, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, several years ago, set up an opportunity called Mentored Youth Trout Day, scheduled for the Saturday preceding the opening of trout season. This year’s Mentored Youth Trout Day is Saturday, March 28. The general season opens April 4 at 8 a.m.

The concept was to offer kids under age 16 a chance to fish for trout before the rush, competition, and sometimes chaos of the trout season’s general opening day.

But recognizing that young children often need help from a caring adult to manage fishing tackle and to be safe near water, the Commission also allowed adults to fish with kids on that day, provided the adult remained near their mentored child, and more-or-less directly engaged in helping that youngster to fish.

Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly, some adults abused this privilege.

Sometimes groups of three or four adults wrangled one kid into going fishing with them on Mentored Youth Day and then used that kid’s presence to justify a day of early fishing for themselves.

In other cases, adults kept fish they caught in addition to the 2-fish limit per mentored child allowed in the rules.

Of course, many responsible adults adhered to the admittedly vague rules, genuinely helping their mentored youngster enjoy a day on the water, while restraining their own desire to fish. But some adults abused the spirit of the day, distorting the privilege into a bonus day for themselves.

It’s difficult here to resist sharing with readers that there were no special incentives or reserved opportunities for kids when I started fishing in the 1960s. Kids just waded into the streams with all those eager adults and attempted to hold their own.

My dad and uncles always took me along to Laurel Hill Creek in Somerset County for “Opening Day.” The opener was always an early-April Saturday, and it rivaled Christmas morning in the imaginations of hopeful beginner-anglers like me.

Fishing season opened at 5 a.m. sharp in those days. It was still dark, when pre-dawn mornings in April in the mountains of Somerset County are, quite literally, freezing. Before the sun rose over the mountains and eased the iron chill, it was hard to fish because your line froze inside little circles of ice in the metal guides on your rod.

It’s important to remember, readers, that it’s still dark in this account, and that Laurel Hill Creek is known for its jagged boulders randomly strewn across the streambed and coated with a slick sheen of slippery moss. In those days we used rubber-soled hip-boots, whose soles were equally slippery as the slime on the rocks. So, trying to wade out to deeper water, where the trout just “had to be,” I always fell in before dawn. By 9 a.m., my rubber boots full of Laurel Hill Creek, I’d be bordering on hypothermic. But that was a small matter because, some years, I actually caught a trout.

So, from my perspective, today’s innovation of Mentored Youth Trout Day is a worthy concept. But there’s a right way to go about it, and the Fish and Boat Commission has amended the rules to try and make this work as intended. Presented below is an outline of the current rules.

Any youth under age 16 can be mentored in fishing by an adult on the special day (March 28 this year). But to participate, that child or youth must possess either a Mentored Youth Permit or a Voluntary Youth Fishing License. Both are available from the Fish and Boat Commission on the agency’s website www.fishandboat.com. There is no cost for the Mentored Youth Permit, and the Voluntary Youth Fishing License costs $2.97.

Adult mentors of those youths (age 16 and up) must possess a valid Pennsylvania fishing license and a current trout permit. No adult may fish on Mentored Youth Day without an accompanying child or youth.

The mentored child or youth may kill and keep two trout on that day, minimum length 7 inches. Adult mentors are prohibited from killing or possessing any trout.

Language in the Fish and Boat Commission’s rules clarifies the intent this way: “The mentor should be fishing within 6 feet of the actively fishing mentored youth. An angler may mentor multiple youth, but no more than one licensed angler per actively fishing mentored youth. PFBC is discouraging youth organizations to use this as an opportunity to get a large group of youth fishing with minimal adult supervision.”

That’s about it. Simple to follow. Good fishing and have fun.

Ben Moyer is a member of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association and the Outdoor Writers Association of America.