Flatheads in Upper Juniata

[Fredrick]

I haven't fished it in a while but I have to say that smallmouth populations in the Skuke became almost non existent in the Oaks area during the Flathead boom. The PFBC conducted a fish survey in the area and did not find any smallmouth in the area. Were as two years before there was some good number of fish to be caught .

http://pfbc.pa.gov/images/fisheries/afm/2005/6x11_07schu.htm

 

[jifigz]

Frederick, this is kind of my fear with my home river up here. I am not all that familiar with the Schuylkill but I'm thinking that the relative lack of huge log jams, the lack of lots of slow deep water, and the often smaller gravel that makes up the Juniata in my neck of the woods will help to keep the flatheads in check. There are astounding numbers of channel cats in my stretch of the river, however. And I am aware of places that I can think of being flathead hotspots in terms of structure and envrionment just and down river from me, but I'm hoping that they don't colonize too much and hurt the SMB, RB, and Redbreasts too much. Only time will tell.

 

[Mwheaps32]

Dave_W wrote:

jifigz wrote:

Mwheaps32 wrote:
I saw on another Pa based fishing forum where a flat head was caught several miles upstream in Penn's creek.

Do you know roughly where that flathead was caught? I can't really see them causing much damage to the good trout fishing area of Penns but I guess you never know.

I'm curious about this too.

When FH appear in a river, they're in the entire connected watershed (in theory). I've long assumed that they would move up into tribs and occupy the typical areas where we already get channel cats (channel cats migrate up and down some of the local creeks I fish).

However, I'm not hearing about FH being caught well up into small or even medium sized tribs of the Susky. This report on Penns suggests several miles (internet rumor?). It may just be that FH are still expanding and doing so by moving more up the Susky River itself and only occasionally up tribs the size of Penns(?) You don't hear much about FH getting caught in tribs or trout streams in western PA in their native range.

It may be that these are just fish that prefer rivers of a certain size and that a few outlier fish may show up in tribs (like this one in Penns), but few of them.

http://suskyfishers.com/forum/index.php?topic=1448.0

If you go down the page it talks about the Flathead. I know this guy is a serious local angler and he's says he caught it about 10 miles up Penn's that's pretty impressive to me.

 

[jifigz]

Thanks for that link. Very interesting. Notice the last post said that the flatties have been their go to fish "on the Juni" but I'm happy to see that that flathead was just a baby from Penns. I don't think Penns would ever harbor any monsters but I'm not flathead expert.

 

[JeffK]

When I lived in Illinois flatheads were a popular target for big fish anglers (they were a top predator) and the flathead anglers typically fished "crushed" live sunfish as bait. My local river was the Fox River which was like lower Penns in size. The larger fish (10 to 20 lbs) were near the biggest holes which were about 5 to 10 miles apart; in most sections they got up to a few pounds. The trophy hunters were as a result a specialized group of guys. BTW, Smallmouth fishing was very good

My memory may be off, but I read the IL/WI research to familiarize myself with flathead info and some catfish moved 80 miles over the course of a year wintering in deep sloughs in major rivers like the Mississippi, Illinois, and Wisconsin and then spreading out to some pretty small rivers in the summer to feed.

 

[SurfCowboyXX]

The best flathead river in Virginia is the New River, and it has been since the 1930's (my dad told me stories that, as a kid, the old men would run trotlines across the river and catch monsters that they would hang from the clothesline poles). Guess which river is also one of the two best smallmouth rivers in Virginia (and one of the best anywhere)? Also the New River. I don't think flatheads are a big issue for smallmouth bass.