end of smallmouth on the susquehanna

[afishinado]

1wt wrote:

Fishidiot wrote:
This is nonsense.
Everyone who fishes the river knows this and the reason for the bass decline in that section of river has not been identified. Yes, there are lesions but More study is needed.
With respect to juveniles: they are still there, just in depressed numbers in the lower Susky. It is hyperbole and irresponsible to assert that there are no YOY bass. This issue is studied/surveyed every year.

Fishidiot,

I fly fish the very same water as you do. I can see the drastic change in the lower Susky. When the OP said no YOY, he meant "almost" no more healthy YOY. They are much more efficient with sampling now a days!

The Warmwater Jam, last year, and nobody caught any smallmouth? and that was WAY upstream? Don't you think that is a little strange?

Last year Maurice posted a report when he went to Wrightsville. He only caught one small sickly channel cat? Everybody used to catch dozens there with a fly rod? ..... even me!

The Susquehanna has crashed! For you to say "nonsense, there are still YOY" is only mixing up the idiots in charge of fixing it....... if it can be fixed at all??

Now that I have my photobucket fixed, I'll have to post some pix of years ago when I would catch >100 healthy smallmouth with my fly rod in the clean, fish filled Lower Susquehanna.

Hey 1wt,

No doubt the lower Susky is in bad shape for SMBs. If you check out figure 1 on this link, you'll see that the NB of the Susky is still in good shape.

Mostly operator error on the WW Jam last year. Actually the fishermen were definitely "off", but so were the fish.

Everyone needs education....it's never too late to learn sumpthin'!

 

[Fishidiot]

1wt wrote:
Fishidiot,

So .......... you want to educate me?

"I don't need no education,
I don't need no thought control,
No dark sarcasm from the moderators,
Hey, Fishidiot, leave the 1wt alone,
All in all, you're just another Brick in the Wall"

Okay - good comeback 1WT. I do like Pink Floyd. :lol:

 

[barrybarry]

I know far less than many of the other people on this post.

The decline of the SMB very closely mirrored the decline of dandelions in neighborhoods across the state.

I was one of those neighbors who you would hate to live beside. Never used "weed and feed" or anything herbicide related. When I first moved in the bass were everywhere and so where the dandelions. When I left the were no dandelions and there were no bass.

It was kind of suburban culture thing that happened. Whether it had anything to do with SMB is anyones guess.

 

[Paraleptalata]

3 things to think about. They may have been mentioned before but I did not read every post. First, the overall warming trend that we are in right now is a factor. I would wager a bet that the river is hitting warmer average temperatures than ever before. My home river the Juniata hit 90 degrees in places last summer on more than one occasion. Second, are sewage treatment plants and other discharges being monitored ("treated" fracking fluid)? Last, urban and suburban runoff is occuring at an alarming rate. Example would be the Selinsgrove strip. In my life time this went from a few businesses mixed amongst farm fields to a 6 mile long 2 mile wide stretch of blacktop. Another great example would be the Carlisle Pike. Just thoughts, not facts!

PARA

 

[1wt]

Paraleptalata wrote:
First, the overall warming trend the Juniata hit 90 degrees in places ("treated" fracking fluid)? Last, urban and suburban runoff is occuring at an alarming rate. Just thoughts, not facts!

Para,

+1

I agree. I used to fly fish the lower Susquehanna all the time. I saw a huge fish kill back in 03' when I was wet wading upstream from the Statue in Perdix, and I saw with my own eyes thousands of YOY with a white fungus spot on their back gasping and dying in the near 90 degree water.

When I post, on this forum and others, most attack me for telling the truth!

Fishidiot, and others, post some charts that are good for me to see. I try to keep hope....... maybe this year things will be a little better?

All the runoff now has pharmaceutical drugs, fracking chemicals, sewage from the outdated sewage plants, rock snotgrass, and silt everywhere. It used to be a "world class" gravel bottom paradise only 30 years ago!

I keep my fingers crossed, and I shouldn't complain ...... God knows that I have already caught way more than my share! It's just hard for some of us who experienced the Heavenly Paradise to keep our mouths shut while this beautiful river dies right in front of me!

 

[Fishidiot]

Paralep,
Your theories make sense - as it stands right now, nothing should be ruled out for further study or investigation.

Regarding the warm temps, the PFBC does consider this as a possible reason for low bass survival. The bass crash in the lower Susky pre-dates the fracking boom.

What folks need to remember is that we're talking about the lower Susky where bass are in such bad shape. Warm weather, urban sprawl, lawn chemicals, endocrine pollution, aging sewage treatment plants etc.......all of these are problematic throughout the state and are common in other big river systems. Bass are doing fine in the North and West Branch as well as the Delaware and Allegheny watersheds for the most part. If the problem is "pollution" as everyone likes to contend (and I don't rule this out)......why are the macros not affected? The river is loaded with mayflies. Turn over a rock in Harrisburg and it's swarming with mayflies, caddis, crayfish, helgys etc. However, bass either can't successfully spawn or the YOY don't survive the summer in sufficient numbers to bring the population back.

What is different in the lower Susky that isn't happening in the lower reaches of the other big Mid Atlantic rivers?

 

[McSneek]

So the State DEP says there's no evidence to list the river as impaired.

http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/808534_Susquehanna-River-not-on-impaired-list.html

 

[midgeman]

Floods, ag runoff, water treatment, industry, and increased river temps are the problem. High water limits the success of the spawn. Ag runoff fills the system with unhealthy chemicals and promotes the algae blooms along with dissolved oxygen. The treatment of water isn't perfect. It's a known fact that if a treatment plants culture goes bad then the sewage is dumped. Furthermore, birth control pills residues are finding its way into smallies. Industry that isn't being properly regulated will dump bad water into the system. Then in the summer, the temps have been terrible. Add these factors together and you have the answer to failed spawning success below Williamsport.

 

[SurfCowboyXX]

The fishermen were not "off" at the Jam. The river was. It's a pathetic excuse for a smallmouth river now. Even upstream. This area is screwed for smallies until we figure out what we are doing that is wiping them out or helping the cause. I can promise you that what happened to us last summer does not happen on the James or the New. Wind, sure, but not the skunking.

 

[afishinado]

You were OFF.....Surf!

The NB of the River still holds a lot of SMBs according to the many surveys done by the FBC and also the catch rate of many spinners.

For some reason I can't explain, the SMBs on big rivers that still hold a lot of fish (Lower D and Upper Susky)have been very elusive when FFing. I've fished with Surf and well as other good Smallie FFers. We had a flotilla of really good FFers for the WW Jam.

Topwater action for the last two seasons has been non-existent most of the time, and even aggressive fishing like swinging and stripping buggers and streamers failed most of the time. It seems you needed to fish low and slow with smaller flies and coax the smallies into biting. What happened to the fish that smacked anything that came their way? Strange.

 

[1wt]

SurfCowboyXX wrote:
The fishermen were not "off" at the Jam. The river was. It's a pathetic excuse for a smallmouth river now. Even upstream. This area is screwed for smallies

If I remember correctly, Maurice was using a spin rod (just to find the fish or course) and he still couldn't catch anything?

It's really a shame, and probably can't be returned to the World Class river it used to be. But these "scientific" tests they use now are really only a couple guys walking near the shore to shock the tiny fish and count how many have fungus spots on them?

The graphs you show don't seem logical to me! And the few fish left are almost all "unisex" and sickly with legions? And all the stinkin' silt on the bottom now, and the 90 degree water temps, and the rocksnot on almost every stinkin' rock!

It's kinda sad for a fly fisherman like me, but the trout are still here and the bluegills in the lakes are doing fine!

 

[Mike]

During the summer of 2011 we had an erruption of the same problem with the YOY SMB at isolated locations (not riverwide) in the Schuylkill R (Reading upstream to Berne) and in the Delaware R (Point Pleasant..upper Bucks Co). Water temps exceeded the max suitable for SMB YOY. High flows late into spring delayed spawning to the point that YOY hatched out and were still present in the shallows when exceptionally hot days rolled in. Had the flows not been exceptionally high in spring and had an exceptionally warm spell not arrived so soon after the spawning took place, the adults would have spawned earlier and the YOY would probably not have been forced (behaviorally) to occupy such shallow, exceedingly warm habitat. They probably would have been in deeper water or more mobile in a normal year and would have avioded the exceptionally warm shallows.

 

[SurfCowboyXX]

This May, Afish, I will take you down home to the New, and we can catch dozens of big fish again like we used to. On top.