Lehigh, where to start?

[lestrout]

Yo mike

Welcome. Do you ever make your way East to Philly, or Bethlehem. We have a couple of very active and fun clubs that meet monthly. Or halfway here is Boswell's in Chambersburg and Wingenroth's in Lebanon. It might be a bit out of the way, but Cigars International has a huge store up in Hamburg, but they do have some pipe stuff.

hp
les

 

[troutbert]

When the water is low and warm the trout often get thin. They're stressed.

Then they get chunky after better flows and water temperatures return. I've seen this even on brook trout streams.

 

[PhilC]

Disagree with the skinny statement as well...

 

[Smike]

Not buying it? What is not to believe. How do you explain these fish in poor condition? I never said the problem was habitat, the problem is the fish. I have a theory and until I am disproven, it stays.

Your rod must be broken if you are only catching skinny trout. Trout have done very well over this summer (and that includes the tail end of the trout water near Slatington)

Now reading your post again it seems you were fishing the upper section (above the gorge) Fish don't do as well up there. The river is much more supportive further down. Not your typical tailwater where its normally best near the outflow of the dam.

 

[Gone4Day]

Tigereye wrote:
I have a theory and until I am disproven, it stays.

I know it’s just semantics, but technically you have a hypothesis:
It's OK to be Smart

 

[blueheron]

Sections in the gorge have AMD issues where the fish survive but the bugs do not. Other sections are generally cleaner but with low flows the bad water cannot be dissipated as quickly. Observations , non scientific, but observations all the same. I have seen giant well fed trout and skinny unhappy trout, I tend to target the areas with the happy trout.

 

[afishinado]

Interesting discussion.

In general, what sections of the LR hold the skinny trout?

 

[Bonzoso]

blueheron wrote:
Sections in the gorge have AMD issues where the fish survive but the bugs do not. Other sections are generally cleaner but with low flows the bad water cannot be dissipated as quickly. Observations , non scientific, but observations all the same. I have seen giant well fed trout and skinny unhappy trout, I tend to target the areas with the happy trout.

Blue, please allow for my ignorance as I'm an old guy an not up to speed with all the acronyms. What's AMD? Thanks.

 

[troutbert]

AMD = acid mine drainage

 

[Dcap240]

Where are there abandoned mines in the gorge? I've heard people mention the AMD in the Lehigh before but I always figured the mines they were talking about were in Jim Thorpe. I know of a few small quarries but they are all mostly slate. I haven't noticed a skinny trout in the gorge in the past 5 or 6 years, stocked or wild. I'm not sure why some of you guys think there are no bugs in the gorge, and how can the fish survive without the bugs?

 

[troutbert]

I believe the guy who said he caught skinny trout.

And those who said they caught chunky trout.

The AMD comes from tributaries on the west side, in the upper part of the gorge.

Look at topo maps on AcmeMapper.com and you can see the mining areas and the streams flowing from them east into the river.

 

[Gone4Day]

troutbert wrote:
AMD = acid mine drainage

Or more broadly, Abandoned Mine Drainage. That way you include a variety of other adverse impacts like total dissolved solids, heavy metals, trace elements and even high alkalinity in some cases.

 

[blueheron]

Troutbert has it, though the lower gorge has it's share of funk water and it seems to be isolated to the west side tribs. I would think this is common long standing knowledge to the locals, I figured it out by hiking and biking and fishing over several years,there is alot of river through that section, all of it accessible one time or another during the year. The cold water alliance folks and other groups have done much trying to improve the water quality,I don't know the particulars, and I thank them.

 

[Dcap240]

Ok. Correct me if I'm wrong but when you guys say " upper gorge" you are talking about Jim Thorpe all the way to FEW? I think of that as the entire gorge and upper being rock port to FEW.

 

[troutbert]

There are a lot of Lehigh River regulars on here. Maybe someone could just list the AMD affected tribs.

Nesquehoning Creek is a major AMD trib, not far above Jim Thorpe.

The stream that comes in at the Rockport access is AMD polluted. And there are several others in that general area. All on the west side.

 

[Smike]

Upper gorge is really subjective but generally I think of it as above Mud Run to the dam. The gorge proper is Mud Run down to Jim Thorpe (in terms of geology anyway)

AMD tribs are as follows (from north to south)

Sandy Run
Buck Mt Run (Rockport)
Black Creek (Penn Haven)
Nesquehoning Creek (just above Jim Thorpe) Use to be a major contributor but has had clean up and mitigation added and now supports fish. Buck Mt and Black Creek in the last surveys still do not support trout in them, not sure about Sandy Run.


Today overall the AMD is not as much of a major issue as you would think. Two reason, clean up has helped reduce the acidity, (especially on Nesquehoning) and the new flow plan from the dam has helped keep up minimum flows. The flows of these tribs (at least the worst offenders is not all that much compared to the river) the issues are felt more in short term events when the river is low and that reduces the dissipation of the AMD flow into the large stream.

The water temps seem to have greater impact to trout health in the gorge to the dam. In summer the cold pool is lost and water coming out of the dam can reach as high as 75+. Once the water moves downstream the tribs will actually lower overall river temps (plus the depth of the gorge keeps all but the mid-day sun from directly hitting the water.)

Right now the single biggest improvement that can be made is to keep tweaking the annual flow plan from the dam to save as much of the cool pool as possible. There should be an annual meeting with the ACOE in jan and having as many FF show up is extremely valuable to offset the number of White Water boaters asking for more releases.

One interesting fact about the reservoir is that it only takes 6 days to completely cycle the water when its held at 1300’ level, and 60 days when its held at 1368’ level. (i.e. how long does it take inflow to replace all of the water in storage) Since the dam is bottom release this matters at lot to how long it takes to use up the cold pool.

 

[Tigereye]

For what it's worth the skinny fish were caught above white haven. Minimal AMD there, trout are predominantly state stock fish. A possible culprit could be that dam releases in this section tend to effect river more abruptly than the southern sections. Causing stress? I have caught fish in this area as late as January and most were skinny. A twist is that holdover trout caught in spring tend to chunk up, though they are a rarity and tend to be on the small side, < 10-12 inches. My observations. YMMV.

 

[afishinado]

Smike wrote:
Upper gorge is really subjective but generally I think of it as above Mud Run to the dam. The gorge proper is Mud Run down to Jim Thorpe (in terms of geology anyway)

AMD tribs are as follows (from north to south)

Sandy Run
Buck Mt Run (Rockport)
Black Creek (Penn Haven)
Nesquehoning Creek (just above Jim Thorpe) Use to be a major contributor but has had clean up and mitigation added and now supports fish. Buck Mt and Black Creek in the last surveys still do not support trout in them, not sure about Sandy Run.


Today overall the AMD is not as much of a major issue as you would think. Two reason, clean up has helped reduce the acidity, (especially on Nesquehoning) and the new flow plan from the dam has helped keep up minimum flows. The flows of these tribs (at least the worst offenders is not all that much compared to the river) the issues are felt more in short term events when the river is low and that reduces the dissipation of the AMD flow into the large stream.

The water temps seem to have greater impact to trout health in the gorge to the dam. In summer the cold pool is lost and water coming out of the dam can reach as high as 75+. Once the water moves downstream the tribs will actually lower overall river temps (plus the depth of the gorge keeps all but the mid-day sun from directly hitting the water.)

Right now the single biggest improvement that can be made is to keep tweaking the annual flow plan from the dam to save as much of the cool pool as possible. There should be an annual meeting with the ACOE in jan and having as many FF show up is extremely valuable to offset the number of White Water boaters asking for more releases.

One interesting fact about the reservoir is that it only takes 6 days to completely cycle the water when its held at 1300’ level, and 60 days when its held at 1368’ level. (i.e. how long does it take inflow to replace all of the water in storage) Since the dam is bottom release this matters at lot to how long it takes to use up the cold pool.

Agreed. This season we had a wet spring and the FEW release was high, along with the regular WW releases. The cold water pool was depleted rather early and the fish in the upper section had to hang on in tepid water for months.

The gorge area is more protected from the sun and tribs add cooler water for the trout.

 

[AFISHN]

For whatever it's worth,I fished the LR between Bowmanstown and Sleightington yesterday. Nymphed from 10 am until 3PM caught 6. All fished looked normally shaped to me. All BT.
BWO #16 and PT 14 worked.Nothing rising

 

[afishinado]

The Lehigh is really a great river to fish and explore.

Here is a Google Map of all the major access points with info on each (scroll down). Included is a hatch chart:

Lehigh River Access

Here is a announcement of a meeting to be held with the Army Corp of Engineers about the Lehigh flow regimine.

Here is a link for the Lehigh River Stocking Association.

Good fishing to all.