Schuylkill R. smallmouth YOY production - 2009 & historical

[Mike]

New report: Schuylkill R. smallmouth bass YOY (young-of-year) production in 2009 vs the past. YOY is a fancy fisheries term for fish hatched this year.

http://www.fish.state.pa.us/images/fisheries/afm/2009/6x08_26schu.htm

 

[Fredrick]

Mike you beat me to it I was just getting ready to post this :-D

 

[Fishidiot]

Thanks Mike. I suspect a similar trend would likely be consistent across much of the smallie's range this year in eastern and central PA.

I'm surprised the survey didn't turn up any tiger muskie fingerlings. I'm interested in musky management and, although not a big fan of tiger muskies, recognize their advantages from a fisheries management standpoint. The PFBC website indicates heavy stocking of tigers in the Skuke last year in areas I would think correspond to some of these survey locations. Perhaps, if the tigers were stocked last fall, they would have grown to a size (roughly 18-22") by this year where they would not be present where the sweep for bass YOY was focused. I did notice that the lower Skuke, down to Fairmont Park and below to the DE River, has not been stocked with tigers since 2004. Has this area been permanently removed from the tiger musky program? I can remember some PFBC fish surveys 10-20 years ago which turned up some decent tiger muskies in Philly.

 

[jayL]

Mike,

How large was the brown trout, and was it wild?

I have always been very interested in what I believe were fall migrations of good sized brownies in a few berks county ATWs that ran into the skuke. I was never sure if they were wild.

I also still occasionally fish that stretch of river, too. Never turned up a trout, though I wasn't targeting them.

My friends have reported some crazy splashing going on there in the shallows, and we suspect tiger muskies. My plans to target them were ruined by high water this year.

 

[Mike]

jayL: The brown trout was wild and was 8-9" long. We were a short distance upstream from Sixpenny Creek's confluence, perhaps a quarter-half mile or so, thus the capture of a wild brown was surprising, but not totally so.

FI: The TM's stocked last summer and early fall would be about 16-18 inches long by now, so they would not be occupying the habitat that we electrofished. Fingerlings from this year, if they had been present (but were not stocked yet) would have been in that habitat, as were the fingerling chain pickerel noted at the 5 Locks site. As for the lower Schuylkill from Flat Rock Dam downstream to the Delaware, we used to stock that area but I incrementally removed that stretch from the stocking program as the stocking effort did not produce the angling or electrofishing results that it once did. We have recently (past few years) allocated TM to the stretch from Norristown Dam downstream to Plymouth Dam in anticpation of Plymouth Dam's removal, which will then allow TM and boaters to move both directions throughout the stretch between Flat Rock and Norristown Dams. I anticipate a potentially good fishery, but that remains to be seen if it comes to fruition. Already, however, we have had a report of a near-legal TM caught at the base of Norristown Dam, which is encouraging.