2020 Drought Effects on Small Freestoners. What is Everyone Seeing?

[Swattie87]

Have gotten enough fishing in in 2021 so far to begin to put together some thoughts and notice some trends. In general, I have been in the “the fish are better at dealing with tough conditions than we give them credit for” camp, but I’ve noticed something concerning this time. Will explain more below.

I fished Potter County twice last Fall, after the droughts, and things seemed fine. Plenty of fish alive and well everywhere. Camped two nights along decent pools and a quick shine of the headlight onto the pool at night revealed plenty of survivors.

I’ve fished streams in Centre, Mifflin, Union, and Clinton counties in 2021 already and they too have largely seemed fine. Wasn’t great fishing necessarily, but I attribute that to cold water still. I saw and spooked plenty of fish.

My specific area of concern is noted in/around NE Lycoming County and Sullivan County. I’ve fished two of my historical favorite streams up there, and didn’t see a fish in one, and only saw a small handful (like 3 or 4 in 2+ miles) in the second. Both of these streams produced 30+ fish days as recently as last June. A fellow forum member was up in this area early last Fall and sent me a picture of a completely dry streambed in one of their neighbors, a fairly sizable stream by small freestone standards.

What’s everyone seeing? I felt like things were largely ok after the 2016 drought. But I have some concerns this time, in the Lycoming and Loyalsock drainages especially.

 

[silverfox]

I've personally seen a big variability in how the populations handled last year's drought. In my experience so far from SC PA to NC PA (and MD and VA this weekend), it seems like some places did surprisingly well while others didn't do well at all.

I can't even begin to guess at why some places seemed to do better than others. I fished a small stream in Potter a few weeks ago and I suspect the population there didn't do too well at all. I fished a lot of good habitat without moving a single fish. I only caught a few brookies of one year class and didn't see any smaller fish at all. Given how small the stream is, I bet it went completely dry last year.

A local brookie stream I looked at last year at the worst part of the year had barely any water in it, but that stream along w/ a smaller trib further up the watershed seems to have done surprisingly well. I fished it back in February and found all-year classes throughout the whole area. It actually surprised me because the small trib was completely dry and the larger stream was just a few pools w/ wet rocks in between.

 

[dustyroads85]

Swattie,

I was able to get up to the exact area you are referencing in late April/early May. As you said, cold crystal clear water & I expected a slow day. I started fishing about 2 miles down from the head waters where the stream is about 15' wide at best. I fished up about 1/2-3/4 of a mile. I literally did not see a single fish on a stream where I expected to at least catch or miss 10-15. Conditions were beautiful, air temps were reasonable.

This stream always produces fish, but I struck out. I really wanted to drive downstream and hike in, but I didn't have the time to explore further.

The water much above this area where I quit can be marginal as it's very skinny & tough to fish, but there are a few pools that can produce some nice fish, I increased my pace and hit a few of those with no luck. I quit moving upstream when I hit the area I knew was likely dry last year.

Another note - the stream levels in this area looked like what I'd expect to see in late June. Now they've gotten some rain up there recently, I hope the levels have improved.

On the other hand, just over the mountain from the headwater a few miles (NW Sullivan), I have a camp and that stream next to my camp also was low, but I was able to pick a few brookies out of it. I fished that from my camp a mile up to where it gets to only a few feet wide and it did produce fish, I'd say comparable to prior years. This is a stream I've not seen go dry, it'll get bony, but there are always pools to keep fish and the water stays cool through the summer.

 

[lycoflyfisher]

Swattie,

Something to keep in mind is that some of that area endured a substantial highwater event on Christmas eve on top of the drought impacts from last year. The impacts from that event may have wiped out a yoy class on a number of these streams. With that said, I fished a few Loyalsock tribs in Feb and March and saw a few fish, but did not land any. I historically struggle on these streams until water temps warm up, I have not been back yet.

I fished a larger trib to Lycoming this weekend for a short time Saturday evening and caught 2 brook and 1 brown all about 6in. This was in bigger water, that has been hammered by flooding in the past decade. I only cherry picked the best habitat I could fish with a dry. I saw several other fish nosed up into riffles and I am sure I could have done well on nymphs or emergers, but I did not have much time. I do think some of the very small tribs are going to be way down adult population wise this year.

 

[k-bob]

lyco, Good point about a hi winter flow event damaging a brookie yoy class. Paper below considers how weather events that alter yoy#s can shape the number of larger brookies over time. I cant stay with all the math but check out abstract and table 2:

https://kannofish.weebly.com/uploads/2/5/1/7/25178052/kanno_et_al._2016_climate_on_bkt_yoy.pdf

 

[lycoflyfisher]

thanks for that paper k-bob. its good to have evidence back up a reasonable observation/ hypothesis. A scouring flood shortly post spawn can only mean bad things for incubating trout eggs, especially in the region being discussed and the significant bed loading that occurs.

 

[Spotman]

Just returned from a week on Loyalsock and Upper Pine. Fishing was poor overall and that was particularly true on Loyalsock Creek. Many fishermen not happy with the Sock this year.

 

[BradFromPotter]

I have not been out much this year, but a friend was out about 2 weeks ago on Kettle & caught a couple dozen nice brook trout.

 

[Letort]

The natives I have caught this year are much smaller and sparse. Two years ago was incredible, but the drought and temps last summer seems to have had a very serious impact.

 

[Prospector]

I fished Cross Fork creek last week on May 21 and I caught a stocked brown and 2 wild brook trout (4” & 6”). Water was low, clear and 60 degrees. The water temp was favorable for fish activity. On the other hand the low clear water and the lack of insects generally reduces fish activity. I have no evidence this happened but fishing through after someone else has already fished through will also reduce your catch. Another factor is I always catch less in May than I do in June.

For now I’m saying Cross Fork can go either way. I fished it last year on June 2 with water temp at 54 but there were tons of bugs. I caught 23 brookies, 3 stocked rainbows and 2 wild browns. The quote in my fishing report said

“The brookies are everywhere in Cross Fork creek and eager eat anything that resembles a bug.”

I’m still holding out hope the fish are still there. I will know for sure in a few weeks when I fish there again.

 

[tabasco_joe]

Streams I fish look ok but the pattern seems to be setting up for summer droughts. Hope not. But most years I remember that didn't have August issues, or had only mild issues, had wet May and June.

 

[wildtrout2]

tabasco_joe wrote:
Streams I fish look ok but the pattern seems to be setting up for summer droughts. Hope not. But most years I remember that didn't have August issues, or had only mild issues, had wet May and June.

I hope not as well, but as you mention, the pattern doesn't look promising. You get a good rain event, then you go two or three weeks before the next one. That doesn't cut it at all. There's really no consistency in our weather anymore. One extreme to the next.

Like I've mentioned before, I believe climate/weather change is the biggest threat to our wild trout populations.

 

[lycoflyfisher]

I fished two smallish streams in the northern Lycoming Co/ Sullivan Co area this am. Flows on both I would classify as summer lows, and temps surprisingly on the one was in the mid 60s even though it was 45 when I started fishing. This area needs rain bad.

It was a slow morning of fishing, the trout were not actively feeding and few were spooked from feeding lies as opposed to spooking them out from under large boulders and ledge rock. I caught a couple 5-6 in brookies that were exceptionally fat and on brown in the 9-10 in range. Saw fish in most holes, but it seemed off. I am hesitant to say the population is down in this watershed just yet though.

The highlight of the morning was after I had fished a narrow 3-4ft wide, 2-3ft deep bedrock shoot, I had snagged my fly on a stick stuck along the edge. I had already caught a brook trout and several others were darting around as I walked along the hole to retrieve my fly when a large (16-18in) brown came out from the undercut ledge rock and nailed what looked like a 7-9in trout literally right next to me. It then broke the surface and rolled back into his hiding spot with the smaller trout in tow.

 

[tabasco_joe]

wildtrout2 wrote:

tabasco_joe wrote:
Streams I fish look ok but the pattern seems to be setting up for summer droughts. Hope not. But most years I remember that didn't have August issues, or had only mild issues, had wet May and June.

I hope not as well, but as you mention, the pattern doesn't look promising. You get a good rain event, then you go two or three weeks before the next one. That doesn't cut it at all. There's really no consistency in our weather anymore. One extreme to the next.

Like I've mentioned before, I believe climate/weather change is the biggest threat to our wild trout populations.

I remember patterns like this in the early 70s. Mainly drought years.
I also remember non-drought years in the mid 60s where it was cold and rainy well into June. Not unlike what we've had over the past few years.

 

[wildtrout2]

Fished a Pocono native brookie stream today. Water was at mid summer lows despite any recent rain, and the temp was still only at 52F. I remember this same scenario last year. Crazy. Only managed four small fish, the biggest at 8". I just wasn't getting them in the spots that usually produce.

 

[lycoflyfisher]

To date, my experience in the West Branch Susquehanna Drainage has been favorable. I have fished streams in the Muncy, Loyalsock, Lycoming, Pine and Kettle basins as well as some smaller watersheds better classified as west branch tributaries. I have even caught brook trout in many of the larger streams in exciting numbers.

I plan to further investigate some tribs in the northern Lycoming/ sullivan co area as this area was hit hard with the Christmas Eve flooding extending eastward towards fishing creek, bowmans and mehoopany creek watersheds. My early outings here resulted in adult fish, perhaps slightly less numbers. I want to get a feeling for yoy abundance. The Clinton Co streams I fished, seemed to have reasonable yoy abundance based on visual observation.

 

[Swattie87]

lycoflyfisher wrote:
eastward towards fishing creek, bowmans and mehoopany creek watersheds. My early outings here resulted in adult fish, perhaps slightly less numbers.

I saw a YT video posted in the last few days from a channel I watch that I was able to place as being shot in ^this area. Had good numbers of adult fish being caught. Was nice to see, and from a stream/watershed that I would have thought would have been vulnerable to Winter high water event acid spikes. (It has excellent habitat, and would likely do fairly well in protecting fish in drought conditions though.)

Hoping my early season struggles were just low, clear, cold water, and the fact that I’m not very good in those conditions.

Still have my concerns about NE Lycoming County and western Sullivan County specifically however. Interested to hear what you turn up. I had three outings on three different streams up that way in March/April. Did not observe a single live fish. Two of the streams are listed class A. The third isn’t, but IMO historically was the best of the three. (One’s we PM’d about.)