Trout season is upon us once again here in the Pocono Mountains, and there's plenty of public rivers, lakes, and streams from where you can cast your line for free. Here at Big Brown Fish and Pay Lakes in Effort, you can get your rod, you can get all the bait you want, and there's three different ponds from where to cast your line and catch the big one. They even raise their fish here on site at a hatchery that we're going to check out.

Tucked between Route 115 and the Pohopoco Creek are the ponds that make up Big Brown Fish & Pay Lakes—a labor of love for Charlie Conklin and his family since the early 1970s. Charlie dug these ponds himself—50 years ago!

Jim: How many trout do you have in here at any given time?
Charlie: We probably have about 6,000 pounds in the little pond and 6,000 pounds in this pond.

That’s more than 4,000 fish—per pond. There’s even another pond full of bass.

Jim: You pay a low cost to get in and you can catch how many fish at one time and take them with you for eating?
Charlie: Yeah, you can catch all you want. You just have to be careful because you’ve gotta pay for what you catch. And you have to keep what you catch.

Folks have been “catching” at Big Brown Fish and Pay Lakes for half a century—and also at the Conklin’s other location, the historic Paradise Brook Trout Company in Cresco, the first licensed trout hatchery in Pennsylvania.

Back at Big Brown, fishing is always in season—outside of winter.

Can we take a little pan over here? I think it’s pretty amazing to see this circular motion. Would you consider that something they do when they’re waiting for feeding time?
Yes. We feed them regularly. It keeps them healthy and helps them grow.

And growing is a full-time operation across the creek from the fish-and-pay ponds, where the next generation has taken the hook, line, and sinker.

This is our hatch house. This is where it all starts.

Allen Conklin has kept the business growing—just like these fish—bigger and bigger.

As they grow, they start to run out of space. So we’ll take the larger ones, split them up, and move them into the next series of troughs.
Jim: So there are more troughs for bigger fish. You can really see the difference here.
Allen: Yes. We stock all over the Northeast—especially Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania. We’ve even gone as far as Wisconsin with one of our trucks.

The Conklins and their crew at Big Brown aim to grow brown trout to 12 inches in a year, brook trout to 14 inches, and rainbow trout to 15 or 16 inches. Rainbows grow the fastest.

Jim: From inside the hatch house to the raceways outside, you’ve got a lot of brown trout just soaking in the sun and growing bigger by the day.
Allen: That’s right. As they grow, they move into a bigger area. They need more volume of water to keep growing.

And grow they do.

Allen and his team are constantly sizing up these trout before loading them into trucks to be stocked at private locations across the region, taking serious pride in the finished product.

We try to raise our fish, like a lot of other producers, to be the nicest quality possible. We have to raise them fast to be profitable, but also to keep the quality high. We always make sure their fins and colors look great.

Whether it’s delivered by truck or you hook one yourself, Big Brown offers more than just a place to find fish—it’s an experience that often means fish for dinner. And no fishing license is required.

We have a lot of people come here and fill up the freezer because they love fresh fish. You can’t get it fresher—it’s swimming until you bring it up and have the kids fillet them.

Big Brown Fish & Pay Lakes is open from March to December. Visit bigbrownfish.com to plan your next fishing trip.