Historic Susquehanna River

[Cornholio]

In the early 19th century people were shot and killed over fishing spots along the Susquehanna during the Shad run.

I wouldn't be surprised if something like that happens along Walnut Creek in Erie one of these days.

 

[salmonoid]

Fishidiot wrote:

TJones wrote:
Anybody know about walleye... Are they an introduced species as well?

I believe the walleye was introduced to the Susky watershed (along with pike, muskies, black bass, and channel cats).

I think you are right on walleye; they are a Mississippi drainage fish originally. But I've been puzzling over what fish Philip Tome is referring to when he talks about catching "pike". He describes night hunting for deer by floating down Pine Creek and catching fish on the upstream trip - eel, salmon, pike and rock-fish.

PFBC attributes the descriptions of a "silvery salmon run" on Pine Creek to likely being shad, but I cannot find any mention of pike.

Tome did trek overland to the Kinzua area and hunted and fished the Allegheny, so perhaps he was just mixing and matching species and didn't have a good editor

Some resources:
https://archive.org/details/pioneerlifeorthi00tome

http://fishandboat.com/water/creeks/pine/pine-creek-plan.pdf (see the Historic surveys and information, starting on page 7).

http://nas.er.usgs.gov/
http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/SpeciesList.aspx?group=Fishes&state=PA&Sortby=3 (will get you a list of fish in PA - choose the Point Map for each species to see the historical range and where transplants were noted or recorded, from literature or surveys)

 

[Cornholio]

Could the Pike have been Chain Pickeral? I know they are native to eastern PA. Not sure if they are native to that drainage though.

 

[JeffK]

I have heard there is some dispute over whether or not walleye were introduced or native to the Suskie. (no dispute over smallies - introduced from the Potomac). Walleyes are native to the Mississippi and Great Lakes drainages, and many of the Great Lakes/Mississippi drainage fish are missing in the Suskie and Delaware watersheds. The debate over whether some of the early mentioned fish are walleyes is complicated by evidence that the Great Lakes drained down the Suskie at one point in the recent glaciation, so the Great Lakes were connected to the Suskie and walleyes could have been introduced then. I think most biologists believe they are introduced, but there is a contrary view.

BTW, as the glaciers moved south they first blocked the St Lawrence so the Great Lakes drained through the Hudson R. When the Hudson was blocked, they drained through the Suskie briefly. The major rivers in the low sea level period carved out large valleys that are now the Hudson Canyon and tidal Hudson and Chesapeake Bay. These are larger than may have been cut by the rivers in their present flow.

 

[troutbert]

JeffK wrote:
I have heard there is some dispute over whether or not walleye were introduced or native to the Suskie. (no dispute over smallies - introduced from the Potomac). Walleyes are native to the Mississippi and Great Lakes drainages, and many of the Great Lakes/Mississippi drainage fish are missing in the Suskie and Delaware watersheds. The debate over whether some of the early mentioned fish are walleyes is complicated by evidence that the Great Lakes drained down the Suskie at one point in the recent glaciation, so the Great Lakes were connected to the Suskie and walleyes could have been introduced then. I think most biologists believe they are introduced, but there is a contrary view.

BTW, as the glaciers moved south they first blocked the St Lawrence so the Great Lakes drained through the Hudson R. When the Hudson was blocked, they drained through the Suskie briefly. The major rivers in the low sea level period carved out large valleys that are now the Hudson Canyon and tidal Hudson and Chesapeake Bay. These are larger than may have been cut by the rivers in their present flow.

What was the path of Great Lakes drainage to the Susque?

 

[geebee]

JeffK wrote:
I have heard there is some dispute over whether or not walleye were introduced or native to the Suskie. .

I would suspect they are native as walleye also exist across the same latitudes in the UK, northern Europe and Russia - we/they call them Zander (after sander luciperca) or pike-perch.

like pike and carp, in clean clear cold water, they are delicious eating.

in northern france, 'sandre' is a real delicacy. I've had it, its like swordfish - sweet & steaky.

As Northern Europe was once joined to North America, its no surprise that both share the same charrs, perches and cyprinidae.

 

[salmonoid]

JeffK wrote:
I have heard there is some dispute over whether or not walleye were introduced or native to the Suskie. (no dispute over smallies - introduced from the Potomac). Walleyes are native to the Mississippi and Great Lakes drainages, and many of the Great Lakes/Mississippi drainage fish are missing in the Suskie and Delaware watersheds. The debate over whether some of the early mentioned fish are walleyes is complicated by evidence that the Great Lakes drained down the Suskie at one point in the recent glaciation, so the Great Lakes were connected to the Suskie and walleyes could have been introduced then. I think most biologists believe they are introduced, but there is a contrary view.

BTW, as the glaciers moved south they first blocked the St Lawrence so the Great Lakes drained through the Hudson R. When the Hudson was blocked, they drained through the Suskie briefly. The major rivers in the low sea level period carved out large valleys that are now the Hudson Canyon and tidal Hudson and Chesapeake Bay. These are larger than may have been cut by the rivers in their present flow.

Except the Great Lakes didn't exist until AFTER the last glaciation. They were formed as the glaciers retreated...

 

[troutbert]

According to the 2nd paragraph of this document, walleye are not native to the Susquehanna.

http://www.fish.state.pa.us/pafish/walleye/susq_walleye.htm

 

[sandfly]

pike= pickerel and they are native to this area

 

[Chaz]

I know Shad went into Pine Creek, most likely to some tributaries too. Stripers move 300 miles up the Delaware there is no reason why they wouldn't go up that far in the Susquehanna. Stripers probably went up into large tributaries too.
In old books they talk about Susquehanna Salmon but at the time the big migratory fish were not salmon, they were either stripers or shad.
In the Susquehanna watershed just about every tributary had trout in them. Look at all the trout runs and trout creeks in the watershed.

 

[Chaz]

salmonoid wrote:

JeffK wrote:
I have heard there is some dispute over whether or not walleye were introduced or native to the Suskie. (no dispute over smallies - introduced from the Potomac). Walleyes are native to the Mississippi and Great Lakes drainages, and many of the Great Lakes/Mississippi drainage fish are missing in the Suskie and Delaware watersheds. The debate over whether some of the early mentioned fish are walleyes is complicated by evidence that the Great Lakes drained down the Suskie at one point in the recent glaciation, so the Great Lakes were connected to the Suskie and walleyes could have been introduced then. I think most biologists believe they are introduced, but there is a contrary view.

BTW, as the glaciers moved south they first blocked the St Lawrence so the Great Lakes drained through the Hudson R. When the Hudson was blocked, they drained through the Suskie briefly. The major rivers in the low sea level period carved out large valleys that are now the Hudson Canyon and tidal Hudson and Chesapeake Bay. These are larger than may have been cut by the rivers in their present flow.

Except the Great Lakes didn't exist until AFTER the last glaciation. They were formed as the glaciers retreated...

Not exactly, they were formed by glaciers yes, but there was also a meteor involved. Same as with the Chesapeake Bay.

 

[JeffK]

There were glacial lakes that preceded the current lakes. So yes, the Great Lakes in their current form are post glacial, but huge glacial lakes existed during glacial times in roughly the same area.

The one back and forth drainage I know is Cayuga Lake. The streams that preceded Cayuga Lake drained north, as the Finger Lakes do now to Lake Ontario. Earlier glaciers (there were a number of advances and retreats prior to the last) cut a deep trench when the southward flow of ice was concentrated through a stream valley where the glacier pushed off the lowlands up onto a plateau. The trench where Lake Cayuga is was largely complete by the time of the last glacier. However, at the last glacial maximum the drainage north was blocked and formed Glacial Lake Ithaca which drained south, mainly through the wide flat valley down to Owego where it met the Susquehanna. These flood plains are larger than current streams would indicate because they formed at higher flow and with higher sediment loads from glacial outwash. Fish could have been moved from the north side of the divide to the south at this time. Of course that is not the current view and is problematic, because other fish from the north side of the drainage, like smallies, didn't make it over. But Cayuga Lake did alternate draining North and South making fish transfer a possibility.

 

[wbranch]

I have caught quite a few stripers in the West Branch of the Delaware. This one was caught at the Balls Eddy access. It was 28" long. Great fight of a #5 rod.

 

[krayfish2]

Matt, that's a nice fish. I saw a guy hook up in that same area and whatever he had almost broke his rod before snapping the line. I assumed it was a striper or monster walleye.

 

[Chaz]

A friend of mine hooks up with stripers in the U.D. regularly.