2018- A Strange Year: Your Thoughts & Observations?

Dave_W

Dave_W

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We've done our share of grumbling about the weather around here lately....That map is still black and blue as it's been for months. :-o

Anyway, this has, of course, been a very unusual year and I'm interested in your thoughts and observations...especially as we move into the autumn months.

For those who have been out fishing....What unusual or unforseen patterns have you noticed? Are hatches different; holdover trout in unusual places; spawning early or late; streamers vs nymphs better this year; fishing action during rising or dropping water levels; temps, etc.?

I think this year ought to reveal some interesting or atypical fishing patterns and problems.

 
Definitely the wettest year that I can remember.

I do recall having other wet summers. But things usually dried out by august or september - setting up some nice fall fishing.
Not likely this year, for sure

On the bright side, I would think that all this rain will set up some great lake erie steelhead fishing
 
The rain will stop....only when the snow begins to fall!

There seams to be an abundance of mosquitoes in my back yard.
 
Since I fish mosty limestone springs, this summer has been same as usual. No noticeable changes in hatches or fish activity.

As of yesterday, Accuweather is calling for only 0.05” in SCPA over the next 25 day. Things may be looking up.
 
Dave,

It has been the strangest year I can remember.

Bass fishing as far as rivers has been a complete bust.

Trout fishing on the other hand, I only started a few months ago because I was trying to bass fish from April to the end of July. In those months my trout fishing was limited but very good. High water has made small stream trout fishing fabulous. Streamers, streamers, streamers.

High numbers of stocked trout have held over. I can confirm this by fishing a few stocked creeks that normally get warm. 2 of the 3 are teeming with fish and the other one has good numbers.
Rainbow trout are holding over in amazing numbers and I fully suspect you will see more isolated, populations of wild rainbows in the next year or two. I bet some of these fish breed. If we get rain next year like this year. Expect more stocked fish to hold over, more of the isolated populations of wild rainbows that normally crash to hold over again. It happens in PA that these populations pop up. They usually die off but.....

What this means for wild brook trout is uncertain IMO. I do know, they are doing just just fine, they love this in their watersheds. No low water population crash in PA Class A wild brook trout streams. They are going to be fishing great by next spring. If the trend continues....and we have another summer like this past one, expect the above to pan out again.
This is good for brook trout, Ill say that.

My strangest observation, is I recently fished 3 separate small SEPA spring creeks. All very clear streams normally. These watersheds rely not much on ground water. Yet the are twice normal volume, 3 days since the last rain. In fact, they have looked like this for months. Clear still but also cloudy. Great streamer fishing!

Trout fishing is really grand on small streams this year.
Big river trout fishing. spotty at best

I have not seen a good hatch all year. Then again I didn't start trout fishing until August after I was done sulking over bass.

Sill, I have never seen these creeks like this.
In my area, legacy sediment banks are the norm. You can never see streams from the road. Now you can. Rather than being 3 ft down below the stream bank, its too the top. I envision it looking like colonial times because none of our development is sucking the watersheds down. Deep down, I ignore the fact its just ripping bank away and all that sediment into the creek.
 
A couple broad observations:

Valley streams, both spring fed and run-off, are taking much longer to drain down that would be normal after such a spike. You can really see this looking at the USGS flow rates - very sharp spike followed by many days of almost flat or very slowly tapering down.

Up on South Mountain the amount of water coming out of hillside springs has been very heavy - rates unlike I've ever seen. Virtually every draw that would normally be completely dry in summer has a continuous flow. Many of these that are just a trickle for a few feet , then mud in normal years....are flowing one to three foot wide creeks that trout could navigate up. And the flow continues all the way down the draw and into larger creeks. This has been continuous all summer and into early October.
 
Have had some really good trout fishing this summer... but bass on the big rivers didn’t really happen. I targeted them a few times during some windows on the larger tribs, which was productive. I still have hopes for a great cold water season on the main rivers.

Dave I’ll echo your observation on how slowly streams seem to be dropping after spikes... the ground is just so saturated and aquifers are charged. This is great... except for the DAM mosquitos, lol! They are horrendous this year. Oh well, I’ll take it... I believe this has been healthy for us in the long run.
 
Dave_W wrote:
A couple broad observations:

Valley streams, both spring fed and run-off, are taking much longer to drain down that would be normal after such a spike. You can really see this looking at the USGS flow rates - very sharp spike followed by many days of almost flat or very slowly tapering down.

Up on South Mountain the amount of water coming out of hillside springs has been very heavy - rates unlike I've ever seen. Virtually every draw that would normally be completely dry in summer has a continuous flow. Many of these that are just a trickle for a few feet , then mud in normal years....are flowing one to three foot wide creeks that trout could navigate up. And the flow continues all the way down the draw and into larger creeks. This has been continuous all summer and into early October.
Click to expand...

^ agreed > no doubt the aquifers are charged.

I check the USGS page for all PA streams every day, and have for years. In normal seasons when the flow had been raised a bit by rainfall the river or stream would fall quickly and stabilize at a near normal level without rainfall. Now the flows are flatlining at a much higher level.

Overall, a great season for trout and trout fishing in smaller streams. Many of the bigger rivers and streams have been pretty much unfishable for most of the season for trout or smallies or other WW fish.

A disappointment for many that have boats love to wade the big rivers, but it is what it is.......hopefully everyone got out some and caught some trouts.
 
I have done less fishing this year than I have in many, many years. That is a combo of me being busier than ever and the weather and water conditions. I think autumn fishing and is going to be amazing, however. I have all ready had some good streamer days and I think that it will continue to be great.

The flows are most definitely staying consistent and not dropping. Kish seems to be hovering around 500 cfs so there is a lot of water in ground. Typically at this time of the year it may be 50 cfs or so. I am thankful for the flows though because I love fishing in that and it will produce fantastic results.

I also think here in about 2 weeks the Juniata should be in prime shape. It isn't dropping quickly at all but bass and walleye fishing is going to be good. But yes overall such a weird year that killed my fishing but overall should be good for the local trout.
 
I get the impression any animal with a close relationship to streams has had better than average recruitment and forage. That includes birds of prey and mosquitos, unfortunately.

I think fish have dispersed more to fill niches that don’t usually exist thanks to strong levels but also to avoid predators. Therefore, areas I usually expect to find fish seemed thinly populated but other areas were hotspots.

I have enjoyed the season, employing almost entirely dry fly by being quite narrowly selective with where I fished. But the variety of areas fished fell quite a bit as you would expect given flow regimes we have seen.
 
I can’t see into the future, but 2018 has been good when the streams weren’t too high.
 

Did really well when streams were fishable got to know fishing creek better then every was fishable most times when no where else was.
 
Worst year since I started fly fishing 15 years ago. The streams were blown out a lot.
 
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