sick fish in the Susquehanna

jpavoncello

jpavoncello

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Nov 5, 2006
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Just wanted to share this with you all. I was flinging flies down at the Susquehanna in Wrightsville this evening and came across this catfish floundering in the shallows.
I harvested (mercy killing) the catty and called my friend who is the Lower Susquehanna River Keeper.
Seems that there was a fish kill on the river last week with bass and catfish floating up from Goldsboro to Long Level.
The PA Fish Com. is watching this too.
Just wanted to share a photo, this is really nasty and the fish smelled horrible.
 
Any clue to what happened? This photo wasn't due to any recent occurence unless they released battery acid. Nothing in the news?
 
Sounds like some kind of infection if the fish smelled bad while it was still alive. My 2 cents.
 
wetnet wrote:
Any clue to what happened? This photo wasn't due to any recent occurence unless they released battery acid. Nothing in the news?
Click to expand...

A lot of things happen throughout the town, state, country, and world we live in that don't make the news!
 
You should send that pic to the local news paper . A pic like that could go a long way in the news :-x Stuff like this makes me mad all these fish kills have to be man made not a natural occuring thing . The Schuylkill dosen't even have this many fish kills :-x

I change what I said earlier you should send it to some place that dosen't know this stuff is happening all the time on the susky so when they see it they think its new news.

Send the pic to field and stream fly any bass master magazine, and all fly fishing magazines

You know what else makes me mad is that there is 3 times more posts on another thread that is about how they remember the day when a trout jumped out of the water for thier dry fly . And this thread is a day older than that one. But since its not the snobs precocious trout with its brains showing they are not as outraged as I am about seeing this pic. :-x
 
Mike Helfrich, the lower susquehanna river keeper, has the photos and is sending them to Washington DC for analyst. I don't understand everything he said, but the gist of it is that there is a bacterial infection in the river that has been killing lots of fish, smallmouth, rock bass and carp. It's coincided with the water temps skyrocketing two weeks ago when we had that hot spell.
I'll update as I get more info.
If anyone else comes across this, please shoot some photos of the fish and drop me an email, I'll make sure they get sent on.
Thanks
 
BTW, I'd refrain from using your teeth to cut the line while fishing in the Susquehanna River
 
hasn't this been an ongoing problem with the Susqy????
multiple years of this happening

Isn't that why the bass numbers are so low???

higher water temps add to the stress of the fish, thus limiting the fish's ability to fight off the bacteria

I used to fish this river quite often as a kid.......weekly.....50-100 fish smallmouth days were often the norm......a great number of 10-12 inchers....a few 15-18 inchers.....and usually 1 or 2 --20 inch guys a trip between 2-4 anglers--that was in the Fibre dam area, sunbury / selinsgrove
 
Yes, it's been going on for a number of years, but this seems much earlier than in previous years.
 
The Susquehanna has been my primary water, as I fish mostly for smallmouth bass, and the decline in the fishery is all but catastrophic. Five years ago it was common to catch 40-50 nice fish a day. In only two years that plunged dramatically, and my last few trips to the river seemed pointless. Yet there is little or nothing in the news about this, and I have to wonder why. I no longer wet wade there for fear of what crud is present. Heck, with the state of things, I've pretty much given up on fishing the big river. If that catfish photo was used in an article about the river being the source of drinking water for Lancaster City, maybe it would send up some howls from the non-fishing community. Maybe you should give them a call and put a bug in someone's ear. Or, for whatever reason, it may be ignored completely...and we would need to find out why.
 
seen 3 big dead cats and 2 bass on the schuykill today all within 30 feet.
 
That picture is really disturbing. I also wonder why the suskys bactrial infection is not making more headlines in the paper and in the news. My guess would be that the majority of Americans dont care until it affects thier lives. We care becuase we are anglers and stewards of streams. Maybe a phone call, as you said, with that picture would send a message. And maybe not. Somethings got to be done and thats for sure.
 
As far as I know if Dehart gets too low, Harrisburg's backup water supply is the Susky. Maybe if the guv'ner or some senators knew that something would get done. Of course they'd probably just all drink bottled water and send the bill to us.

Boyer
 
MattBoyer wrote:
As far as I know if Dehart gets too low, Harrisburg's backup water supply is the Susky. Maybe if the guv'ner or some senators knew that something would get done. Of course they'd probably just all drink bottled water and send the bill to us.

Boyer
Click to expand...

I believe Harrisburg has to draw from the Susquehanna almost all year. They've outgrown the reservoirs on Clarks and Stony.
 
salvelinusfontinalis wrote:
That picture is really disturbing. I also wonder why the suskys bactrial infection is not making more headlines in the paper and in the news. My guess would be that the majority of Americans dont care until it affects thier lives. We care becuase we are anglers and stewards of streams. Maybe a phone call, as you said, with that picture would send a message. And maybe not. Somethings got to be done and thats for sure.
Click to expand...

I don't think it's Americans not caring. Why isn't anything being done though? Why can't they find the source? I know on the Skippack last year their was a major fish kill and they found it right away.
 
there was another fish kill in Skippack creek last week, some 7 thousand or so dead fish.......same culprit---Mopac...meat rendering facility.....they provide the beef to most of the east coast.....easy to find the culprit on a small body of water
(sometimes).....the susqy is HUGE........it used to be one of the cleanest rivers in the country......now, not so much I guess..........
what type of bacteria is it?? where did it originate?? can it be controlled?? what type of fishes is it destroying???

they have done some work to restore the shad run.......on the susqy.....hope this doesn't affect that..........so many questions and not so many answers

what can you say...........apparantly not much is being done....so a world class smallmouth fishery is going down the drain......what a shame......maybe if the state would put as much time into some fish other than TROUT, maybe this problem would have been addressed........maybe it has been addressed, I don't know.......I do know this much, it is a darn shame
 
The shad run has dropped dramatically in the last 4 years to about 1/5 or less what it had peaked at, but I don't know of any reports tying the 2 problems together. It would certainly be a prudent thing to examine as well.
 
Here is a number you are suppose to call if you witness fish kills due to bacterial infections. 814-359-5110

http://www.fish.state.pa.us/pafish/bass_black/meetings/smb_poster.pdf
 
JustFish wrote:
I don't think it's Americans not caring. Why isn't anything being done though? Why can't they find the source? I know on the Skippack last year their was a major fish kill and they found it right away.
Click to expand...

I think something is being done. DCNR is pressuring municipalities along the Susquehanna to upgrade sewage and stormwater treatment. The problem is, that's half the problem. The other half is non-point pollution. Runoff with fertilizer and other pollution is going to be very difficult or perhaps impossible to deal with. Even getting the sewage upgrades done will take decades and billions of dollars noone has.
 
Padraic wrote:


I think something is being done. DCNR is pressuring municipalities along the Susquehanna to upgrade sewage and stormwater treatment. The problem is, that's half the problem. The other half is non-point pollution. Runoff with fertilizer and other pollution is going to be very difficult or perhaps impossible to deal with. Even getting the sewage upgrades done will take decades and billions of dollars noone has.
Click to expand...

Your right I just found their project proposal on the PFBC website.
http://www.fish.state.pa.us/pafish/bass_black/meetings/susq2008project_proposal.pdf
I also read that on their to do list is to get water records of the water treatment plants. As of now they don't have them.
 
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