Lake Marburg, York County, 2/13/2013

[1wt]

Lake Marburg is 70% covered with ice, so I thought Yippee.... that's 30% fishable water?

I was testing out a new tungsten stonefly I was working on, so I took my flyrod. I saw lots of fish in 15' or deeper water, but I'm a stubborn fly fisherman and I used my 3wt with Floating Line.

Water temp was 41. I caught three small yellow perch, and not even one crappie! I fished from about 2pm until 4pm. It started snowing around 3:30.

Still lots of fun to be out in the fresh air. I've been housebound for the last three weeks!

PS - I got a Dave Scadden Pontoon / Float Tube for myself as a Christmas present (the one where Jack liked the blonde in the ad?) and I must say that this new "bladderless" technology is wonderful. It hasn't lost any air at all since I filled it in December! This will be great for my fly rod carpin' in the Susquehanna this year.

Tight Lines,
1wt

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[NickR]

This sounds safe.

 

[Fishidiot]

Good report. In a couple more weeks it should really turn on. I love Marburg in the springtime - summer is tougher. 🙂

1WT,
If you weren't already aware, the Lake Marburg seminar is this Saturday. There will be seminars on panfish and weed management. Lee Snyder will be talking muskies and selling his book (which is an excellent study of this lake).
Link

 

[1wt]

NickR wrote:
This sounds safe.

LOL, actually, Nick it is very safe. Any float tube in PA and you have to have a life vest on at all times.

This pontoon holds up to 600 lbs (I just started my juice diet yesterday, but in case I fell off the wagon, I wanted a safe thing)

You can't tip a pontoon over, like a canoe of kayak! With my flippers, I can stay in a spot to fly cast with no effort at all!

It's the safest craft in the water....... try it, you'll like it!

 

[1wt]

Fishidiot,

Marburg has 26 miles of shoreline, and is >100' deep, so a couple pix won't spot burn that wonderful lake? The Park Ranger (a young guy, Keller is retired now) told me there are over one million white perch in that lake! Great tablefare, great fighters on a fly rod, and they bite all day! There are signs all over the lake that say "Please keep all the White Perch you catch"

​

 

[Fishidiot]

Yep - Marburg is a neat place. Local folks still call it "Project 70." Not only is it good for fishing, it's just a fun state park with something for everyone. Folks can ride horses, hunt, picnic, boat, bird watch. Lots of hiking trails (my wife and I enjoy looking at the old 18th century cemetery along the south side, when we hike that section). Places like this were part of Maurice Goddard's vision and legacy. I've got my share of disappointment with some of PA's state policies.......but our state parks are something to be proud of.

Regarding fishing......yeah the white perch are real invasives and it will be interesting to see what happens. Personally, I think they should stock the lake with pure stripers. I just don't think there can ever be enough walleyes and muskies to eat down these pelagic hordes. Summer evenings are nice and can fish well. It has just been my experience that the larger panfish and bass tend to suspend over deep water in summer. If you get there at dawn there are bass along the shore but by sun up they seem to disappear in my experience. Guys graph huge schools of crappies and white perch (and trout) over the deep channel from the islands to the dam in summer. This sort of deep fishing just isn't my cup of tea these days. I'm a river rat and usually spend my summers on creeks and rivers.

 

[NickR]

Good report... I use a pontoon but your not going to catch me using it at this time of year. Only thing that would make me nervous is taking a dunk in waders in this cold weather.

 

[NickR]

Nice pics by the way?

 

[JakesLeakyWaders]

I used to spin fish Marburg every few weeks in my kayak or canoe. I've caught some real lunkers out of there.

Once I was fishing for bass with a 5" twin tail grub with the skirt on a 2/0 gamagatsu offset hook, Texas rigged and landed a 20+ inch rainbow. I thought I'd hooked a big bass, the thing was shaped like a bass. Caught it near the dam on an offshore point using the lake map I have in about 25 feet of water.

And yes, Marburg is big and deep, most people have trouble fishing it because with the clear water a lot of the fish are waaay deeper than you might think. I've caught bass on bucktails in 50+ feet of water there. Walleyes are even deeper.

I agree there should be stripers in there.

I consider Marburg one of my favorite home waters and due to its size I wouldn't be concerned with it being spot burnt. It doesn't seem to have much structure at first glancing down into its clear water, but there's plenty of it hidden in the depths. I once drove around the lake about a decade ago when was at an extreme low, more than 20 feet and marked spots/ made notations on the map I have.

 

[Stevie-B]

I have a couple of maps showing all the old houses, roadways and other "structure" in the lake, and they are mostly in deep water.

Hit that lake in the late fall when it's raining and your arm will all but fall off from the number of fish you will catch.

 

[Mike]

Yes, take note, I have read your striper stocking requests here. Marburg is in my regional jurisdiction.

 

[JakesLeakyWaders]

Mike,

with the recent explosion in the white perch pops that I have been hearing about, some stripers would help keep the lake diversified.

Judging by the size of the musky's I've seen come out of the lake, I'm sure they don't have too much competition.

I mean I find it kind of funny how they tossed a bunch in Pinchot years back, Pinchot is mostly less than 10-15 feet deep throughout the lake.

Marburg is deeper than that within casting distance from the shore. The map I own says it is 110 ft. at the dam and mostly deeper than. 40 ft. deep just a short distance offshore anywhere downlake from the first bridge. The main body of water from the two islands (Long Island & Round Island) down to the dam is mostly between 60-80 ft. in depth. There is a LOT of deep, cold, clear water in Marburg.

Marburg has a definate thermocline with adequate oxygen levels for coldwater species.

Don't know if you remember, back in the 90's they dumped like 17'000 or so coho salmon in Marburg and they were in there for years.

Thanks for your consideration and for reading,

Jake

 

[Fishidiot]

JakesLeakyWaders wrote:
Mike,
I mean I find it kind of funny how they tossed a bunch in Pinchot years back, Pinchot is mostly less than 10-15 feet deep throughout the lake.
Don't know if you remember, back in the 90's they dumped like 17'000 or so coho salmon in Marburg and they were in there for years.
Jake

Jake,
Yeah, I remember the cohos. Boy, talk about a story that got a heckuva lot more press than it deserved. 🙂
Regarding Pinchot - the fish stocked there were (are) hybrid stripers and I think they dropped it from the muskie list (although I'd have to check - may be wrong)

Mike,
I've long wanted to see stripers in Marburg since well before the WP invasion. Maybe poach some fingerling from the Susky or lake Redman/Williams allotment and try 'em in Marburg on a short term basis. The lake has many similar characteristics to Raystown and I think the local angling community would welcome the experiment.

 

[Maurice]

I seem to recall a couple hundred thousand rainbow fingerlings being dumped into Marburg in the summer about ten years ago. I recall it to be a WTF moment when we heard. But apparently it was the "Coldwater fishery" of choice to dump them. I forget the reason why the dump occurred. We joked at TU about buying up all the rainbow trout rapalas and going after the musky and stripers and walleyes. But alas, we never acted on it.

Perhaps this buffet for the predator fish determined by the AFM took pressure off the white perch and caused the explosion. Perhaps Mike can give us his assessment on this possibility.

 

[Fishidiot]

I chatted up some folks at the Marburg symposium today and some of these issues came up. Not surprisingly, the fishermen in attendance were almost all against spraying weeds with herbicide.

Fisheries issues, also not surprisingly, were more complex. Generally, the old timers think the lake is fishing very well these days. Apparently the trout stocking has stopped (a couple guys weren't happy) but there was a lot of satisfaction from bass, muskie, and panfish guys (except yellow perch). I asked what folks thought about stripers and some thought it a good idea but wondered how it might effect the current fishery. When I asked local muskie legend Lee Snyder how he felt about stripers in Marburg he did not favor the idea.

 

[Fishidiot]

Maurice wrote:
But apparently it was the "Coldwater fishery" of choice to dump them. I forget the reason why the dump occurred. We joked at TU about buying up all the rainbow trout rapalas and going after the musky and stripers and walleyes. But alas, we never acted on it.
.

Maurice,
Marburg actually is a genuine coldwater fishery with oxygenated depths where trout can grow and thrive unlike many warm water lakes that used to be heavily stocked (like Opossum Lake). Personally, I'd like to see fingerlings continue on Marburg, even if the numbers of fish have to be curtailed.

 

[Maurice]

Jake caught a 20" rainbow a few years ago...thats one. Anyone else? 1 out of 250,000 doesn't make a make a fishery. I've never heard the trout call to marburg. And I have lived here for 13 years.

 

[Mike]

While the lake produced trophy sized trout in numbers large enough (18-25") under the old fingerling stocking program to attract a few anglers with downriggers (one from Reading, Pa), in later years the fingerlings did not do very well, probably as a result of predation. A switch was made to stocking adult trout not to provide an instantaneous fishery as is done each spring in other waters around the state, but in this case to improve the chances that the RTs' would get past the predators in large part because of their larger size than the fingerlings. By fall of the first year RT's were running from 13-15", seemed fairly numerous at night around the islands based on electrofishing, and by the following fall anglers were catching 18" fish. In later years we heard that the typical fish were 18-25". The fishery never took off, however, in that it did not become popular with enough anglers to make continued stocking worthwhile. For example, when I polled 75-100 anglers at last year's Lake Marburg fishing symposium, none indicated that they had fished for the larger trout. While a number of angler enjoyed fishing the cove for the stockies when they were first stocked and for a few days until they dispersed, that was not the intent of the program and it would not be a very efficient or effective way to run a regular adult trout stocking program, where returns are much better from smaller lakes and small to mid-size streams. If you desire to try for Marburg's large RT's there is still plenty of time to do so as the last of the annual stockings occurred last spring. There should be a full range of year classes present in the lake. A helpful hint: In the fall (Oct or Nov) we found the RT in the weed beds at night, especially in the island area (Round Island). I would think that the fish would be dispersed throughout the main body of the lower lake anytime that the water is cold enough, not just in fall. My recollection is that we also saw some RT in near shore weedy areas not associated with the islands. The north shoreline was the location (not in coves).

 

[Mike]

Striped bass stockings: Would probably work if they can get past the gauntlet of predatory white perch, but would do little to "control" the white perch population. Any impact of stripers on white perch would even be less now that gizzard shad populate the lake as well. The best and only control that I have seen work so far for white perch has been a natural fish kill at Nockamixon Lake. The population never recovered; only a remnant population remains (winter kill happened in 1985-86).

Considerations:
1) Need. York Co already has two striper/striper hybrid fisheries (three if you include those that make their way from Lake Redman into Lake Williams, and four if you include the Conowingo Pool of the Susquehanna). Additionally, the Susquehanna Flats fishery is close by. Furthermore, we have recently been working to increase the abundance of another species (muskellunge and tiger muskellunge) through increased stockings of muskies and new stockings of tigers in Marburg (to create a desirable, higher catch rate fishery, not to control white perch). The tiger muskellunge program was dropped at Redman due to lack of more recent success and angler interest. So the lake has been receiving attention (in addition to its channel cat, crappie, and walleye stockings).

2) Practicality. Anglers should be more successful in smaller lakes than in larger lakes where successful stockings are taking place. Pinchot, Redman, Williams, all smaller lakes, already have successful fisheries. Additionally, since the fish are stocked as fingerlings (at the moment) and on a per acre basis, it takes less fish at a lesser cost stocked in a smaller lake to create a desirable fishery.

3) Availability of fish. Fingerling stripers are not as available as they once were and there may be a shift back to typically less reliable fry stockings in some lakes as a result. This would not be a good time to add more lake acreage to the striper stocking program, at least not for fingerlings.

 

[Fishidiot]

Interesting. There was certainly a lot of positive buzz about muskies in Marburg yesterday and many pics/fish stories about them. The fish in the photos (all purebreds as far as I could tell) looked good and many of them were extremely fat. Folks felt that the shad forage base was the reason for the thick fish and fast growth rate.