What happened to Save our Susky

pcray1231 said:
That ecosystems balance out and become stable and harmonious is a myth. Well before humans walked the earth, native animals had massive boom bust patterns in response to floods, disease, harsh winters, droughts, mast crop cycles, insect cycles, etc. If one species had a disaster it resulted in effects on predators and prey as well.

Oaks only drop acorns every 2 years, or 7 for some varieties. Cicadas come every 17 years. Why? Because these events are an absolute boom for animals that eat them. The resulting year class of their predators is huge. Which makes next years acorns/cicadas LESS likely to make it. That's how they evolved that way and the evolutionary strategy thus becomes to miss the population booms of your predator and hit the busts. Animals with shorter life spans and higher number of young are generally more affected by temporary stuff. The strategy is to be able to handle, as a species, a population crash and repoulate quickly. Whereas longer lived animals with less young take the approach of trying to endure hard times by being more mobile, have a more varied diet, or whatever.

Part of natures "plan" involves major population swings.

Likewise the classic fox/hare type population models have very little basis in reality. Because it may be a real variable but there are lots of variables. They both have other sources of food, they both have other predators, they're both affected by disease and droughts and floods and harsher than normal winters.
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Correct, however, species that coevolved over millions of years have a better chance of dealing with each other's booms and busts than a bunch of species that have been separated by millions of years of geographical separation suddenly (over the course of 200 years) finding themselves having to coexist. Walleye aren't analogs for stripers. European carp aren't analogs for American eels. Throw in the physical barriers and other environmental factors like pollution and temperature regimes, and it's anyone's guess which species thrive or fall.

Just like with the snakehead issue. To suggest that in 20 years we have a handle on how that plays out in the long term (real long term, not 100 or 200 years) is absurd.

Look at the mussel/eel relationship on the Susquehanna. It's not like the mussels have adapted to utilize European carp now that the eels are mostly gone.
 
pcray1231 said:
That ecosystems balance out and become stable and harmonious is a myth. Well before humans walked the earth, native animals had massive boom bust patterns in response to floods, disease, harsh winters, droughts, mast crop cycles, insect cycles, etc. If one species had a disaster it resulted in effects on predators and prey as well.

Oaks only drop acorns every 2 years, or 7 for some varieties. Cicadas come every 17 years. Why? Because these events are an absolute boom for animals that eat them. The resulting year class of their predators is huge. Which makes next years acorns/cicadas LESS likely to make it. That's how they evolved that way and the evolutionary strategy thus becomes to miss the population booms of your predator and hit the busts. Animals with shorter life spans and higher number of young are generally more affected by temporary stuff. The strategy is to be able to handle, as a species, a population crash and repoulate quickly. Whereas longer lived animals with less young take the approach of trying to endure hard times by being more mobile, have a more varied diet, or whatever.

Part of natures "plan" involves major population swings.

Likewise the classic fox/hare type population models have very little basis in reality. Because it may be a real variable but there are lots of variables. They both have other sources of food, they both have other predators, they're both affected by disease and droughts and floods and harsher than normal winters.
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I think we have to be really careful not to confuse the cyclical fluctuation of fish populations based on seasonal variables as you mentioned with a the instability that invasive species cause in an ecosystem that goes Boom and Bust. The latter is when the entire food web is damaged in a trophic cascade from top down or bottom up. Like the james river is now 75% biomass made up of blue cats that stunted out at 20”. This is way more radical than the cyclical swings within a fish population we see year to year. That species wasnt even there and now it’s 75% of the rivers biomass. A True Boom and likely not the moat ecologically stable situation as we will find out if they out ear their prey base or not i guess. Flathead lake cutts and bulls were all but gone from invasive lake trout exploding, a true Boom and Bust. This wasn’t just watching a population “saw tooth” along on a graph with variation. There was nothing left in that lake but stunted tiny lake trout. It crashed.

So trophic cascades and coevolved stability with species is absolutely very real and why invasive species reduce biodiversity and maintaining native species keeps it high. Its the stability in the senario with native fish that allows more species to use the aquatic ecosystem in a sustainable/beneficial way hashed out through coevolution. Like silver fox said carp can’t carry muscles, federally endangered atlantic salmon have better reproductive success when they specifically repurpose lamprey redds, and when Yellowstone lake lake trout crashed cutts bears, eagles and other birds dependent on high density runs of fish had a documented negative effect. Nature didn’t “figure it out” we started netting and killing lakers now the ecosystem is coming closer back to the balance that was very clearly important as evidenced by the effects on the above mentioned terrestrial animals and cutthroats.
 
Let me ask anyone that fishes the river regularly between selinsgrove and Middletown....

How many chubs / fallfish do you catch? I catch virtually zero. Isn't it a native species? Shouldn't there be some?
 
krayfish2 said:
Let me ask anyone that fishes the river regularly between selinsgrove and Middletown....

How many chubs / fallfish do you catch? I catch virtually zero. Isn't it a native species? Shouldn't there be some?
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I do catch fallfish on the West Branch. On the main branch the last time I caught a fallfish was probably 4 or 5 years ago. I really want to know what happened to the rock bass. Rock bass used to be the most abundant fish on the West Branch. You can't blame the flatheads for the decline in the rock bass populations because the rock bass disappeared well over a decade or more ago here on the West Branch.
 
bigjohn358 said:
I do catch fallfish on the West Branch. On the main branch the last time I caught a fallfish was probably 4 or 5 years ago. I really want to know what happened to the rock bass. Rock bass used to be the most abundant fish on the West Branch. You can't blame the flatheads for the decline in the rock bass populations because the rock bass disappeared well over a decade or more ago here on the West Branch.
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Rock bass are far from abundant in the west branch, but I have caught good numbers in the Lock Haven area including some larger individuals the few times I have been out.
 
Fallfish and creek chubs are considered to be transitional species with preferences for cool water. Creek chubs are stream fish, although I once foundmthem in a forested pond in Crawford Co.. I don’t recall ever collecting a creek chub from a major river in areas that looked like “rivers” based on width and volume. These included Yough, Mon, Susq and “north branch, Del, Schuylkill, Lehigh, and Chemung. Exceptions were the Schuylkill in Schuylkill Co, where it is more of a “stream” than a river, and likewise, the headwaters of Little Shenango R., Mercer Co (and a part of Crawford?). With low flows and warm stream temps, which often go hand in hand, creek chubs tend to show infestations of the black spot parasite (trematodes). You have seen such fish when you have handled a chub or blacknose dace that looked like pepper was sprinkled on their skin.

Fallfish inhabit both streams and rivers, and some of those get pretty warm at times, so the temperature limit may be max temp, duration of high temps, or even the frequency of temps higher than a certain threshold per growing season...I don’t know. As do rock bass, they appear in mixed populations with wild brown trout where the wild trout population is about to or is fading out. This is where streams are beginning to transition from a coldwater environment to a warmwater environment. Fallfish seem to generally extend farther downstream into a truly warmwater environment than chubs, an example being the Juniata R at Mifflintown, but I never found them in the Susquehanna in the stretch where I spent the most time, specifically from York Haven Dam down to MD. So the question I have for Krayfish is were they ever found in any abundance in the segment of the Susquehanna that he mentioned? If so, then perhaps their absence is another sign of a warmer river than in the past.
 
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In years prior to about 2005, we caught fallfish in the Susky between Halifax and areas up to Sunbury. I can only remember catching maybe 2 in the last 10 years or so. As far as rock bass are concerned I know of none caught in the past maybe 20 years. This includes some of the larger tribs that had decent rock bass in years past. There are still decent numbers of chubs in those same tribes.
 
bigjohn358 said:
I fish a ton from Lock Haven to McElhattan and I haven't caught a rock bass in years.
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Quite a few being caught below the dam in LH. Personally caught 5 in one evening a few weeks ago... not saying they are common elsewhere, but they are still present to some extent. A few weeks before that night I caught a single one that was a chunky 10in fish and was quite surprised.
 
I'm going back to the early 80's for my experiences. I do remember catching a few every year between Marysville and Duncannon. I also remember catching some around Newport on the Juniata. Not a lot but they were present.

The reason I mention it, wondering if there was a major drop off in types of forage fish. Guess I'm trying to link a simple reason for the population decline of bass.

If you go back 4-5 years when the Susky Harrisburg gauge was 250,000 - 450,000 CFS from May through October. It was cranking and super muddy. Floats that would give up well over 100 fish were giving up 2 or 3 fish after the long period of high water. Fish numbers have been horrible since then. A year after the high water, you would catch very few fish but they were a very good average size. Numbers stayed low and size shrank over the following 2 years. Flats that were polluted with crayfish were barren after the high water. Finally starting to the crayfish numbers bounce back.

Seems like there's more fish this year but lots of small ones which isn't a bad thing for the future I suppose.

The Juniata, Swatara and other tribs seem less impacted than the main Susky. Thoughts?
 
krayfish2 said:
I'm going back to the early 80's for my experiences. I do remember catching a few every year between Marysville and Duncannon. I also remember catching some around Newport on the Juniata. Not a lot but they were present.

The reason I mention it, wondering if there was a major drop off in types of forage fish. Guess I'm trying to link a simple reason for the population decline of bass.

If you go back 4-5 years when the Susky Harrisburg gauge was 250,000 - 450,000 CFS from May through October. It was cranking and super muddy. Floats that would give up well over 100 fish were giving up 2 or 3 fish after the long period of high water. Fish numbers have been horrible since then. A year after the high water, you would catch very few fish but they were a very good average size. Numbers stayed low and size shrank over the following 2 years. Flats that were polluted with crayfish were barren after the high water. Finally starting to the crayfish numbers bounce back.

Seems like there's more fish this year but lots of small ones which isn't a bad thing for the future I suppose.

The Juniata, Swatara and other tribs seem less impacted than the main Susky. Thoughts?
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Swatty has crayfish everywhere right now, little guys, its polluted. Can’t tell the species. Claws have little tiny red are on the tips. Tons of minnow species and invasive banded darters in there too.
 
krayfish2 said:
I'm going back to the early 80's for my experiences. I do remember catching a few every year between Marysville and Duncannon. I also remember catching some around Newport on the Juniata. Not a lot but they were present.

The reason I mention it, wondering if there was a major drop off in types of forage fish. Guess I'm trying to link a simple reason for the population decline of bass.

If you go back 4-5 years when the Susky Harrisburg gauge was 250,000 - 450,000 CFS from May through October. It was cranking and super muddy. Floats that would give up well over 100 fish were giving up 2 or 3 fish after the long period of high water. Fish numbers have been horrible since then. A year after the high water, you would catch very few fish but they were a very good average size. Numbers stayed low and size shrank over the following 2 years. Flats that were polluted with crayfish were barren after the high water. Finally starting to the crayfish numbers bounce back.

Seems like there's more fish this year but lots of small ones which isn't a bad thing for the future I suppose.

The Juniata, Swatara and other tribs seem less impacted than the main Susky. Thoughts?
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Agree 100% ^. The few years up to 2017 was great for smallie fishing on the Susky, while 2018 was the high water year for nearly the entire season when things changed for the worst after that year. Some lean years the last few, but this year there seems to be a fair amount of smaller fish. Hopefully the River is recovering and getting back to decent fishing in future years.
 
lycoflyfisher said:
Quite a few being caught below the dam in LH. Personally caught 5 in one evening a few weeks ago... not saying they are common elsewhere, but they are still present to some extent. A few weeks before that night I caught a single one that was a chunky 10in fish and was quite surprised.
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The rock bass must be right at the dam only. When I was a kid back in the 90s I used to catch them and throw them above the dam. We would catch 20+ every time down there. You would catch 5 or so rock bass to every smallie.
 
bigjohn358 said:
The rock bass must be right at the dam only. When I was a kid back in the 90s I used to catch them and throw them above the dam. We would catch 20+ every time down there. You would catch 5 or so rock bass to every smallie.
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One thing to consider, when I was a kid I caught many rock bass in the Susky, but I was fishing with bait. Now I FF. Be sure to factor that in when judging the number of rockies you catch now vs back-in-the-day....
 
afishinado said:
One thing to consider, when I was a kid I caught many rock bass in the Susky, but I was fishing with bait. Now I FF. Be sure to factor that in when judging the number of rockies you catch now vs back-in-the-day....
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I still do a lot of conventional fishing (not bait though) on the river. I caught most of my rock bass on tubes as a kid and I still fish a tube a lot.
 
I always had best success with yellow twisters as a kid. Yellow must be very visible or aggravating to fish because it works from bass to trout
 
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