Water Temperatures in Low Flow, Hot Weather Conditions

[troutbert]

Taking water temps under these hot day, low flow temps reveal a lot about how your local streams hold up in tough conditions.

Yesterday afternoon Spring Creek hit 75F at Fishermans Paradise, and 76F a short ways above Bellefonte.

The best time to find temps near the max is in the mid to late afternoon.

If you have water temps to report, post em up!

 

[RLeep2]

7/23 @ 3PM - Oil Creek below bottom of lower DHALO, but above ice dam: 83F. Drifting dead rainbow trout density: 11 kg/ha...

 

[krayfish2]

Made the long drive up to Clark's Creek last evening to see if I could get the nephew onto a fish or two. Took temp of 71 around 6:30pm and bagged it. At this time, I'd bet most cold water fisheries are cool water fisheries at this point.

Dear Mother Nature,
Please sent rain, ASAP.

 

[Camp]

Wow...83 is incredibly high for Oil Creek. Every stream in the area is as low a flow level as I have seen for quite some time.

 

[Acristickid]

Sounds like a great time to fish for 19 inch plus Browns on Penns

 

[evw659]

Wow, 75F on spring creek.... I wonder what that roughly translates to on the little j and penns for example considering that spring is arguably cooler overall? Of course it depends on what stretch of river youre on, but I would think penns has to be topping 80 during late afternoon from at least the c&r down, and also above elk/pine creeks. The middle river portion of the little j stays cool, but above both tyrone milling and below the barree gorge the temp has to be topping at least 78F. Above tyrone, the little j is likely even warmer. Needless to say, we need some steady rain and a reprieve from the 90F+ highs.

 

[Jessed]

wishing we had a week of 40 degree weather and cold rain

 

[DaveS]

Several dead Yuenglings on the porch this AM. Not sure but I think its the frickin' herons!

 

[jifigz]

Out of curiosity I took some stream temps on the more popular streams here in Mifflin County. The temps were taken today between 12 and 1 PM. The list is as follows.
Tea Creek just above confluence with Kish: 58°F
Kish Creek just above where Tea and Honey dump in: 71°F
Kish just below Honey and Tea: 68°F
Kish at "Rec" park in Lewistown: 72°F
Honey Creek at Bender Park: 72°F
My favorite local Brook Trout Stream: 70°F

Certainly not great temps for fishing, but not lethal for Brown Trout either. I think we are fairing pretty well for such a drought and heat wave.

 

[sarce]

We are entering a period of more frequent pop up storms. The rain that has been over VA and MD earlier this summer is pushing north along with the heat. It won't be enough to end the drought but will provide brief cool downs on many streams, and I don't think things will get much worse than they are now. Just don't fish where it's too warm and the fish will handle it fairly well on their own.

 

[bikerfish]

too damn hot to fish anyways, come on fall!!!

 

[Mike]

With respect to lethal water temps, it is important to not focus on just one form of lethality, that being thermal maxima. There is a whole other form of lethal temps: chronically warm temps. Ignoring Brook Trout, that problem begins around 68 deg F...68.1 for hatchery RT and I expect probably a very similar number for Browns. At that point the percentage of the RT that die throughout a late spring and summer due to temp stress alone is directly related to the number of 15 minute periods per month that the water temp exceeds 68 deg F. It does not matter if the temp drops below 68 deg each night, as the tally continues the next day once the temp rises above 68 again. The 15 min periods above 68 deg accumulate daily through the end of the month .

 

[CRB]

Today storms passed through the northern part of the state.

 

[jifigz]

I believe Brown trout can tolerate warmer temps for longer periods of time than any other trout for sure. Some rain would be great for our local streams. In the last 6 weeks it has rained 5/8 of an inch at my house. Every time it looks like rain it blows right by. It is starting to anger me a bit.

 

[streamerguy]

Between 3 & 4pm today.....

Neshannock Creek between the DHALO and New Castle: 79-80

One of its tribs: 68

Cool Spring Creek between the DHALO and the mouth: 77. Actually saw a rainbow holding at the bottom of a deep pocket

 

[TYoung]

The Susquehanna River Basin Commission has monitoring stations on a bunch of streams in the Susquehanna watershed. One of the things they monitor is water temperature. All the data is posted in their website. Here is the link. The temperatures are in Celsius. For reference, 20 Celsius is equal to 68F.

SRBC data

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Lackawanna ouch!

 

[TYoung]

The part of the Lackawanna River that the temperature reading is taking is well above the good trout water. It's located right below Stillwater Lake which is a man made reservoir. I'm sure that the lake really warms up the water in the summer. Further downstream, cold water from old mines turns the river into a good wild trout fishery.
On the website if you click on the map tab at the top, you can see were each monitoring site is located.

 

[troutbert]

jifigz wrote:
Out of curiosity I took some stream temps on the more popular streams here in Mifflin County. The temps were taken today between 12 and 1 PM. The list is as follows.
Tea Creek just above confluence with Kish: 58°F
Kish Creek just above where Tea and Honey dump in: 71°F
Kish just below Honey and Tea: 68°F
Kish at "Rec" park in Lewistown: 72°F
Honey Creek at Bender Park: 72°F
My favorite local Brook Trout Stream: 70°F

Certainly not great temps for fishing, but not lethal for Brown Trout either. I think we are fairing pretty well for such a drought and heat wave.

Thanks for that interesting info. The temps for Kish and Honey Creek are better than I would have guessed.

 

[afishinado]

It looks like the last WW release for the Lehigh blew out the cold water pool in the FEW. Time to give the trout a break until things have a chance to cool down for a while. For trout fishing in the area, go with the Po.