When Do Fallfish Spawn?

[troutbert]

When Do Fallfish Spawn?

Does anyone know?

I asked Mr. Google and couldn't find an answer.

 

[phiendWMD]

http://www.fish.state.pa.us/pafish/fishhtms/chap11minnows.htm

Life history: All of the Chubs build nests, except for the Pearl Dace. The males construct spawning sites in early summer by carrying river pebbles in their mouths, or pushing them with the snout one by one to build up a large pile in a riffle.

 

[Swattie87]

Yeah, I'd say it's generally a little earlier than early Summer in most places in PA. You can tell a lot of them are built during the higher flows of Spring as the pebble mounds are completely out of the water by mid-Summer a lot of the time.

 

[Beefheart]

Here's an academic article on spawning in fallfish: http://www.vacadsci.org/vjsArchives/V43/43-4/43-377.pdf

It's more focused on the how than it is on the when, but what I could gather is that (at least in Virginia) spawning occurs mid-April to May.

 

[sarce]

On one of my local streams it seems everything spawns at once. Fallfish, suckers, and smallmouths all spawn in the beginning of May. It could be different elsewhere, because I always thought that was unusually late for suckers so maybe my stream is not typical.

 

[moon1284]

This spring I caught about 8 one evening on the upper main stem of the de on dry flies, all between 15 and 20 inches. I've read here that they fight as hard as trout. The ones I caught felt like I had a wet sock on the end of the line.

 

[jifigz]

Fallfish spawn in early June in the Juniata. The sites they build are easily detectable and identifiable.

 

[Dave_W]

I've never actually witnessed fallfish spawning but always assumed that they built their rock pile nests in springtime.

I saw several large fallfish in a group today and although they were not spawning (as far as I could tell) they were really colored up with orange fins. They showed no interest in my flies.

 

[springer1]

This spring I caught about 8 one evening on the upper main stem of the de on dry flies, all between 15 and 20 inches. I've read here that they fight as hard as trout. The ones I caught felt like I had a wet sock on the end of the line.

Interesting, most of the ones I've caught fought well.

 

[sarce]

Ah, the myth of the hard fighting fallfish. I haven't found them yet either.

 

[Dave_W]

moon1284 wrote:
This spring I caught about 8 one evening on the upper main stem of the de on dry flies, all between 15 and 20 inches. I've read here that they fight as hard as trout. The ones I caught felt like I had a wet sock on the end of the line.

If you're comparing them to the trout in the Delaware...it's no contest: those trout will pull a fallfish faster backward than it could probably go forward. :-o

With that said, I've caught a lot of big fallfish and regard them as pretty good fighters. In my experience, they are much sportier in warm water and are slugs in cold water. They do fight as well or better than typical stream trout IMO (although they won't jump) and their scrappiness rises with water temps at about the same proportion that trout get soggy during the summer.

 

[Swattie87]

I agree. I think they're generally good fighters. I've said it before and I'll stand by it here. I think a Fallfish of equal mass outpulls a Trout of equal mass. Fallfish just don't get as big as some of the Trout in the D. Both of them are easily outclassed by a Smallie of equal mass though.

 

[riverwhy]

I have not been catching any fallfish on the Swatara this year. But I did catch my first rock bass!

 

[sarce]

I totally disagree about fallfish outpulling trout of equal size. Every one I have ever caught has one decent burst initially and then proceeds to basically swim right to me. Water temp hasn't made a difference. 8", 16", all the same. Boring fight. I need to fish for the fallfish you guys are catching...