Where can I clean fish in Erie County?

Should anglers be required to leave a small piece of skin on the fillet when using a public fish cleaning station?

That is a question the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission’s Law Enforcement Committee is considering after receiving comments that the rule is neither necessary nor convenient.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Dan Pastore, vice president and commissioner of the Erie-based agency, shared his views on the practice and why it is more burdensome than resource-saving.

“The angler stance on this has been really against it. This is my district, I deal with anglers almost every day. I’ve been to the cleaning stations, I’ve cleaned fish at the cleaning stations, I get a lot of feedback from anglers about what’s going on in this area, and what I’m really hearing is disappointment that we’ve imposed this requirement,” Pastore said. “They can’t effectively clean their fish like they used to.”

The Fish and Boat Commission has three public fish cleaning stations in Erie, including Lampe Marina, North East Marina and Walnut Creek Marina. They were built with funds raised from anglers who purchased Lake Erie fishing permits along with their fishing licenses.

Anglers processing fish at these sites are required to leave a piece of skin at least 2 by 2 inches on the fillets to help law enforcement officials determine the species of fish an individual is in possession of.

“The anglers were very appreciative; they loved the cleaning stations. They’re very widely used. When we opened them, there was no requirement to leave a piece of skin on the fish,” Pastore said. “In July 2022, we implemented a new regulation to require that piece of skin. At the time, I was skeptical as to why it was really necessary, but I was willing to try it and I expressed at the time that I would like to come back to it once we had a chance to see how it actually worked in practice.”

He recently asked anglers to write letters expressing their opinion on the requirement, and 16 people, including the Pa. Steelhead Association and SONS of Lake Erie, expressed their opposition. He also received comments from the Erie PA Charter Boat Association that the organization opposes the requirement.

The committee also received three public comments before the meeting from anglers about leaving the skin on fillets. “All three comments do not support maintaining the 2-inch by 2-inch requirement,” Renae Kluk Kiehl, the agency’s general counsel, told the committee.

Pastore outlined his reasons for asking the commission to consider waiving this requirement.

“It really defeats the purpose and intent of the cleaning stations. There was no ambiguity when we originally did it. We put the stations in so they could fully clean their fish. It was convenient for the anglers. We gave the anglers what they asked for, what they paid for. They paid for the stations out of their permit funds, and we basically took away some of that benefit and said you can’t fully clean fish here anymore. So we’ve undermined the original intent, which was to allow for full cleaning of fish,” he said.

Pastore said the agency has not lost any enforcement methods by adding the station and believes it has actually helped protect the resource. He said officers can patrol marinas and check boats as they dock to see what fish have been caught and whether anglers had proper licenses.

“It’s very effective,” he said of the boats, which have only one exit. “You can see how many fish are in the cooler, check their size, look at people’s licenses. We had that ability and we still have that ability,” Pastore said.

Now officers can also visit cleaning stations to see what fish people have. Anglers clean a variety of fish, including rainbow trout, pike-perch, perch and bass.

“We’ve created a whole new penalty that’s never existed before. It’s basically a new potential point of friction between our WCOs (waterways conservation officers) and anglers that’s never existed before,” Pastore said of the skin regulation.

More: Heading to Lake Erie for a Fish Trip? New Fish Cleaning Station Opens at Lampe Marina in East Erie

If an angler chooses to fillet a fish somewhere other than a public cleaning station, away from the waterway, such as at his camp, he doesn’t have to leave a piece of skin on the meat. Pastore said charter captains can fully process the fish on their boats, but if they use a cleaning station, they must leave a piece of skin on the fillets.

“If I’m a captain of a charter vessel, can I say that as long as I’m cleaning fish on my boat, I don’t have to do it, but if I go to a cleaning station where it’s more convenient for me, then now I’ll have to do it,” he said.

Pastore knows a captain who cleans fish and then takes the remaining parts of the fish to cleaning stations to dispose of them, thus bypassing regulations.

“It’s kind of a puzzle that we’ve created by requiring this,” he said.

Pastore also questioned whether people who caught too many fish or kept specimens below the minimum size limit would actually use a public cleaning station, exposing themselves to the risk of being caught.

“People do things that surprise you, but be practical about it. If I deliberately catch a lot of fish over my limit or I catch undersized fish and I know that, do you really think I’m going to drive to a public cleaning station instead of just taking the fish somewhere else and cleaning them? So there’s no real deterrent value there. You can get around the rule by not cleaning them at a cleaning station,” he said.

The Code Enforcement Commission has mixed feelings about the regulation. Commissioner John Mahn Jr. of Washington County believes the requirement is intended to protect the stock from people catching too many fish or keeping too few.

“Everything I’ve heard has been about convenience over protection. I think we all agree that this rule was put in place to protect the resource. Everyone is for protecting the resource until it becomes inconvenient or until it costs them money. I haven’t heard anything that changes my mind that this is anything other than convenience over protection. Sometimes that’s going to hurt,” Mahn said.

He said signs informing about this requirement help anglers be honest about the fish they catch.

“I think the signs are there to enforce the rules when there are no WCOs around. If the signs are up, 80 to 90 percent of the people who use the cleaning station will follow them,” he said.

Mahn said anglers fishing in Erie who have a long drive home to another part of the state appreciate the opportunity to clean their fish before leaving one of these marinas.

“That 2×2 piece of leather doesn’t seem all that important to me,” he said. “I can live with that two-inch piece of leather.”

Some anglers are able to make a flap out of a small piece of leather that can be easily removed when they get home.

Jeff Sabo, director of the Bureau of Law Enforcement, said anglers often use the fish cleaning station and then go to another location to fish.

“If one of our officers comes in and says, ‘Hey, can we check your basket or your cooler?’ and the person has fish on a string, the skin is there. But if we look in the cooler and there are six, eight, 10 fillets without the skin and it’s a combination of pike-perch and perch, it’s going to be hard for our officers to tell the difference between the meat of those species, what are they supposed to do?” he said.

Don Anderson, commission chairman and Somerset County commissioner, decided to have Sabo interview WCO representatives in Erie about the requirement, and the commission will discuss his findings at a future meeting.

“I’d like to hear from them what they think, especially the Northwest officers who will be working in the Erie area,” Anderson said.

Brian Whipkey is a nature columnist for the USA TODAY Network in Pennsylvania. Contact him at [email protected] and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter on the home page of this site under your login name. Follow him on Facebook @whipkeyoutdoors.