The river has been a wash so whatcha doing?

[salvelinusfontinalis]

I've rolled a largemouth in the 7 lb range,3x's, in a public pond.
Today he leaped clean out of the water as he took my entire size 2 spun hair frog. Took me by suprise and I lost him in 5 seconds :lol:
It was the best part of my day really. The imagery, you should have seen it.
Saw a few other nice bass but I stuck out on those but caught 3 large carp.

I'm stalking that 7lber. I'll get him yet!

Life is good!

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Tried for that fish again this morning.
Struck out and then fished Hex flies to bass and carp in the conestoga.

Trout who?

 

[Dave_W]

Cool story.

Good chance you will get another shot at this fish. Been a long time since we had a pic of a trophy fly rod LM on this site. Good luck!

 

[JerryC]

Will this do till we get a picture of something bigger?

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

I'm gonna try Dave!

Still, the hex flies today....
I'll show you tomorrow it was amazing.

 

[jifigz]

JerryC wrote:
Will this do till we get a picture of something bigger?

That's a pretty good one, Jerry.

 

[bigjohn58]

This whole year with the wet weather had me exploring other options. During the spring I took advantage of several of the class A streams that I've never fished before. Some that I was laughing at being labeled class A pleasantly produced fish. I also have taken a couple of trips to various small lakes in my kayak. One produced lots of fish and a real nice bass. The other lake was a complete waste of time. I can't wait to hit up the river but this mud has to go! I don't mind higher water its the pure mud that's getting to me!

 

[krayfish2]

Looks like the Susky and Juniata are dropping fast and should be pretty clear in the next day or so. I'll give it a go Saturday.

 

[poopdeck]

Nothing's really changed for me. I've been fishing the Delaware. Sometimes it's high, sometimes it's just right and sometimes it's really low and clear like right now.

 

[afishinado]

poopdeck wrote:
Nothing's really changed for me. I've been fishing the Delaware. Sometimes it's high, sometimes it's just right and sometimes it's really low and clear like right now.

The Delaware has been in pretty good shape. I know you live fairly close by and run a boat on it all time. Good for you....enjoy!

But, the rest of us are not poop!!...many of us live close to the Susky and the Juniata. And both rivers have been really high and dirty pretty much all season, which is tough for safe boating in a rocky river as well as making wading and fishing very difficult as well as dangerous.

The Susky at H-burg finally dipped below 4' today. Hopefully it will clear up soon as K-fish posted above. I'm ready to get out there, too!

 

[poopdeck]

While high water is not often sought it is fairly easy to locate bass in high muddy water. They are inches from the bank and ready to eat whatever you toss at them.

When the Delaware gets low, like now, it's very difficult to see the subsurface rocks since there's not enough current to make the distinctive V pattern. I'll always take high and fast over low, slow and crystal clear. And I gotta say, having higher then normal water will be a gift from god for the summer months. I foresee plenty of happiness for the rest of summer for you folks. Keep the chin up, good times are coming.

 

[krayfish2]

Hit the river with Stimey on Saturday. How good was it? Not good. The water has FINALLY dropped and cleared. Expected a lot more than we ended up with. Lunchtime storms on Sunday went north of Harrisburg and we'll know in a day or two if it's jacked up the conditions...once again.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Ya I didn't have much luck either this weekend on the big river.
Then again, family issues have me distracted and I was only half heartily into fishing....
It was likely both me and the river.

 

[Swattie87]

Fished the Swatara near Hershey after work on Friday and got my butt handed to me. A few Sunnies in back eddies was all I could manage. The Smallies did not seem to be in their Summer haunts yet, though that watershed hasn't really gotten down to a good Summer flow at all yet. Came close a couple times, but rains (including yesterday's) pushed it high again.

Fished Mill Creek (Conestoga trib) yesterday afternoon and did much better. Caught a bunch of dink Smalles, where you'd expect them to be for Summer...mid current, around rocks. Best one only went about 9", but it was fun to be catching some Bronze finally.

 

[riverwhy]

I had similar results on the Swatara. Fished below the dam and around the Hanover Street Bridge. Nothing, not even a bite. One guy fishing a spinner there said he caught a bunch of small ones. When I asked him the biggest he said his biggest was a rock bass so I assume if he caught any smallies they must have been real dinks. Now the water has majorly spiked again despite no help to my lawn as everything stayed north and east of Hershey. Not a good year for getting the kayak out locally.

 

[SurfCowboyXX]

I fished a section of the Susky on Friday between 11 and 4pm and did extremely well. 8 smallies to the boat, smallest 16" and two over 20". Not a ton of fish, but basically the same pattern I've been fishing the last two summers.

It looks like the Susky is going to put on another 10" of water by Thursday from storms that hit upstream.

 

[Dave_W]

SurfC,
Good to hear that somebody is catchin on the Susky with the rest of us mostly swinging and missing.

Inquiring minds wanna know: Topwater or under? Patterns compared to last year?

We might get a flow spike and some turbidity back, but I think the next few weeks should see some good opportunities on the river.

 

[krayfish2]

He got them on top. Most of our fish Saturday came on top too. Unfortunately, heavy rains will likely impact the clarity in central again. We'll have to see the impact over the next couple of days.

 

[poopdeck]

The opposite is going with the Delaware. We need a good deluge to bring the levels up and give the river a good rinsing of all the grass and floatsam in it. Getting hard to launch the boat even with the drop axle.

So far the SMB fishing does seem to be a little off. But like surf cowboy, the numbers are down but the size seems to be up with more 15" to 18" fish. By Delaware standards these are good fish.

 

[krayfish2]

It looks like the Susky at Harrisburg will jump from 10,500 up over the 200,000 mark. With the amount of rain that has fallen through State College, Williamsport and points North.... don't see it dropping for quite a while. Hopefully it's good before Labor Day. This season has been a busy so far.