Conestoga

[JeffP]

Has anyone fished the Conestoga lately? I know the Fish Commission did a study a few years ago and the numbers seemed kind of low to be worth fishing. A buddy of mine went out today with spinners and caught 47 smallmouths up to 16 inches. He was downstream of the treatment plant. Anybody else experience this kind of fishing? I might need to get out there!

 

[Susquehanna]

Yes but not every year.
Some years are poor and some are good.

I have found the size of the bass in the Conestoga can crush the size you catch in the Susquehanna.

 

[Mike]

Search out the isolated, short stretches of better habitat. Most of the lower Conestoga does not have good SMB habitat, thus the need for doing some leg work or that of a friend’s.

 

[wgmiller]

Is Lancaster the delineator between "lower" and "upper" Conestoga?

 

[Mike]

That’s probably the case although the biggest change in the Conestoga’s size and habitat occurs below Cocalico Ck. Mill Ck doesn’t increase the river’s size very much and Ltl Conestoga doesn’t either. One might still argue that the Conestoga changes substantially below Lancaster because of all of the stormwater runoff that has to be absorbed by the river from Lancaster and its burbs. In my view, of great interest should be the walleye and larger than standard creek SMB that show up in spring in Lancaster. There are also, shall we say, “interesting” catches of some species and sizes of fish that to me would be more associated with the Susquehanna than the Conestoga, including some in areas upstream from the Lancaster Waterworks Dam, which has a fishway. This allows fish to move upstream even farther.

 

[HopBack]

I fished the middle conestoga near the rt 23 bridge yesterday evening. Fishing was very poor, I only managed 3 YOY bass. This is an area where I have caught 30+ smallmouth in an outing as little as 5 years ago. This would have coincided with the best year of smallouth fishing we have seen in decades on the lower Susquehanna.

My outings to this area become less and less each year due to the poor fishing. I dont really understand what is going on because the mile or so stretch has some of the best habitat that I know of on the conestoga. Huge vains of limestone running throughout and often jutting out of the water. Large slow pools followed by riffle runs with weed beds in all the right spots. Old growth trees on both sides of the river provide adaquate shade. Tons of crayfish and baitfish as well as prolific insect life.

I really wish it was more consistent given that the river access is only 5 mins from my house. At least the YOY bass were plentiful and very fat and healthy.

 

[Mike]

I don’t know the answer, but it could be something a simple as poor year classes for a few years running. That can also be a locational thing, varying among stretches or more likely trending from lower success downstream to better success upstream based on what I have seen elsewhere on larger rivers.

As an example of local variations, on the Susquehanna in the vicinity of the Rt 30 bridge many anglers thought fishing for SMB was quite good there, but a number of my angling partners always found it to be very much better upstream by 4-5 mi. As another example, certainly the Rt 30 bridge area “looks” a lot like the stretch around Fort Hunter and Dauphin but the fish don’t think so beneath the surface.

 

[KGStine]

Hi Hop,

I also fished the Conestoga in that area yesterday from about 12:30 til 3:00. Caught several 4 to 6 inch bass on a crayfish in the faster water. Fished a yellow faom popper in the slower areas. Had a lot of bumps from little fish and two decent blow ups from slightly larger fish that I missed. Switched to a Clouser Wounded Minnow and caught 6 to 8 of the 4 to 6 inch fish.

I fished the same area about a month ago and caught 4 bass between 11 to 15 inches, all on a crayfish pattern.

I agree with your assessment, except this year seems a little better than the last two years, but a decline from several years ago.

Hope to see you at the Warm Water Jam.

Ken

 

[larkmark]

Hopback- Now you see that the bass fishing picture is not quite so bright. How many Rock Bass and sunfish did you get? Fallfish? All those areas were once very good. It was only a few yrs ago that you mocked me for complaining about this very issue.

Mike- The lower Susquehanna is pretty well shot. It was very good 20-30 yrs ago. Has steadily declined. I don't think this is just a down phase. Something else has happened.

 

[mt_flyfisher]

I go to the Universal gym in Lancaster most mornings. On my return home this past Monday morning at about 8:00am I saw quite a few large mayflies in the air as I drove across Landis Valley road to Rt 23 at Eden, where I drive over the Conestoga, and there were still a lot of them over the road all the way to Blue Ball, which must be a distance of about 12 miles.

The Conestoga ahas got to be a mile and more from Rt 23 for a lot of that distance, and I’m not sure where else those mayflies woukd have come from - Mill Creek perhaps.

Anyway, a bit later in the morning I stopped at the Post Office in Blue Ball and there were many of those mayflies on the outside of the windows, and more lying dead on the ground. I took a number of pictures of them since I didn’t know what species they were, and later in the day an entomologist identified them as Hexagenia Bilineata male imagoes. (A pretty large mayfly - 2 -1/2”- 3” long from head to tips of tails.)


I don’t know how long that hatch lasts. - I hadn’t seen them when I went to the gym last Saturday, and didn’t see them again after seeing them on Monday. They must provide another food source for those fish in the Conestoga though.

John

 

[wgmiller]

The Conestoga is indeed alive and well. As noted, some years are good and some are bad. The same as some days are good and some are bad. I ended up landing probably two dozen yesterday with the below fish being some of the nicest. They couldn't resist a chartreuse/white Clouser!

 

[larkmark]

Nice that you found some. The biggest looks to be about 10". They appear to be all the same age class. I wonder where the big ones got to?

 

[Mike]

Larkmark: perhaps back to “the river.”

 

[larkmark]

Mike- I think you may be right. I wonder just how far those fish travel? Some seem to be there year round but then disappear. Other areas seem to hold fish only at certain times. Overall the bigger ones seem to be fewer at all times.

 

[wgmiller]

larkmark wrote:
Nice that you found some. The biggest looks to be about 10". They appear to be all the same age class. I wonder where the big ones got to?

Historically speaking, the best I’ve done in this stretch is in the 12/14” range. There are PLENTY of crayfish and other forage species for them to dine on. I suspect it has more to to do with habitat (or lack thereof) than anything. The way these things hit and fight, I’ll take them any day over trout. Pound for pound one of the best fighting and hitting fish around!

 

[McSneek]

wgmiller wrote:
The Conestoga is indeed alive and well. As noted, some years are good and some are bad. The same as some days are good and some are bad. I ended up landing probably two dozen yesterday with the below fish being some of the nicest. They couldn't resist a chartreuse/white Clouser!

This is yesterday? It’s been muddy in Brownstown for well over a week. Where the heck did you find clear water like that?

 

[wgmiller]

McSneek wrote:
This is yesterday? It’s been muddy in Brownstown for well over a week. Where the heck did you find clear water like that?

Yesterday? Yup! With as heavy as the agriculture is in the Brownstown area and upstream, it’s no wonder it was chocolate milk. The further downstream you get, the less those ag practices impact the river, so naturally its clarity improves. The “hit and miss” nature of summer storms we’ve been seeing also can have a significant local impact, as I’m sure you’re aware.

 

[larkmark]

Mike's comment about movement from the big river really got me thinking When the Rock Hill Dam was removed the bass and walleye could easily get into upper areas of Conestoga. (even before it was removed during high water they could get up around the one side.) Also if we had high water in the months of May and June the fish would migrate quite a ways up the Conestoga and Little Conestoga. It seems to me the high water somehow made the fish move farther up these two Susquehanna tributaries. Has anyone else noticed increased bass and other fish migrating further upstream during high water in the spring time? This is based on the theory that these fish actually move out of the main river. I really am not sure if they all do. By the way there does seem to be an abundance of fish around in that 10-12" range in the Susquehanna and elsewhere (if there are any around at all). Must have been a successful age class?

 

[Mike]

Larkmark and McSneek,
See the last half of my response #5 above. The word “interesting” was a big hint. It also was a reference to channel cats, clearly evidence of river fish movement. In addition, when we were electrofishing for 4 spring weeks in a row below the Lancaster Waterworks Dam in early 2000’s, we found unexpectedly large SMB and WE (walleye) suggesting that they were Susq river fish. The WE sizes were substantially larger than the avg river WE, which raised a bit of a question as to whether they could have possibly been resident fish from somewhere downstream on the Conestoga itself. It was worthwhile considering, but I had never had even an anecdotal report of large WE being caught in the Conestoga, suggesting that these fish might have been from a seasonal migration that had been flying under angler radar for years. Regarding the Ltl Conestoga, a few WE fingerlings have appeared at times.

Much more recently, about 2015, a wild BT fingerling appeared in a survey within 100 yds of its mouth. We never could determine that fingerling’s origin, having electrofished nearby tribs to the Conestoga and not having found any trout. I am suspicious that there may be a wild BT population somewhere within the Ltl Conestoga or one of its tribs, even if the “trib” is a small spring or the stretch of the Ltl Conestoga that is cold enough is very short (cold because of localized influence of a spring).

As for the clear water in the pic, that’s very clear for the Conestoga. When it is locally muddy upstream, but flows/velocities are not too high, one can sometimes stay ahead of the muddy water by moving downstream. It is an unusual circumstance, however.

 

[larkmark]

Very interesting stuff and sort of backs up much of my anecdotal things found whole fishing these creeks. Thanks