2014 Susquehanna SMB YOY

[Fishidiot]

Here's the 2014 numbers for smallmouth bass young-of-the-year.

2014 YOY

Over the entire watershed, results were below average. This is not surprising due to weather and water levels. Both the West Branch and North Branches had low YOY number. Overall, however, these branches still have very good SMB population structures.

The middle section of the river (Sunbury to York Haven) had below average YOY this year, which is in keeping with the general trend over the last decade: poor or at best average YOY counts.

The one bright spot is the lower river (York Haven to Holtwood) which had an above average YOY this year. Although not comparable to some of the off the charts boom years as were common in the 1990s... by the standard of the last decade, it was pretty good. Mike has mentioned the good showing of YOY bass in the lower river this year and, perhaps had river levels been better, the numbers might have been much better.

Although I remain cautiously optimistic about the river, we still need to see a year, or three, with better YOY in the main branch.

 

[foxtrapper1972]

My question is will they become adults? If pollution was the cause of the loss of the fish in the first place, what has changed?

 

[Fishidiot]

foxtrapper1972 wrote:
If pollution was the cause of the loss of the fish in the first place,

The cause of the bass crash has not been identified. Pollution of some type or source may be involved, although this requires more study (the river is generally cleaner now than it was during the bass fishing heyday a generation ago). The current theory -not a solid one IMO - is that low water levels combined with low oxygen levels in past years may have been involved in the bass mortality.
Much has been written about the Susky problems here on this forum and there are good documents on the PFBC website and Susquehanna River Basin Commission covering the bass issue as well as long term pollution stats.