Susquehanna River, Lancaster Co., 10/21/17

[TJones]

Hey Mike, If you have time, I'm curious what your thoughts are on the upper limits of bass growth in our river system... i.e., what's the largest/longest smb you've sampled? And are there certain sections of river you find produce higher numbers of the largest river bass?

 

[Mwheaps32]

It's time to hit the river this week and do some additional surveying

 

[Mike]

Not sure about the longest one without pulling out all of the data sheets since 1985, but I know my crew or I never captured one via electrofishing longer than 22" and probably not longer than 21". Even 20" fish are not an annual event for us at the three sampling sites on the Lower Susquehanna. We usually max out at 18-19 inches. Larger fish can show up anywhere in the Lower Susquehanna, but we tend to find higher numbers in the free flowing stretch rather than the impounded stretches.

 

[Mike]

Expanding on #19 above:
Tally in 2.4 hrs of electrofishing was 548 SMB, with 336 of those being 12 inches and longer, and 69 being 15-19 inches.

 

[Fredrick]

Mike what was the biggest smallie you have surveyed ?

 

[Mike]

25" SMB, Leaser Lk, Lehigh Co, early 1980's;

As for LMB, the biggest was a 27" LMB from Middle Creek (yes the creek) in a mill dam, Middleburg, Snyder Co, about 1978. The largest LMB seen since was perhaps a near-equivalent in Nockamixon Lake, Bucks Co. back in the 1980's.

 

[JeffP]

Hi Mike! Where is that Mill dam? The other day I followed what looked like a tiny spring just down from the bridge on Rock Road. The tiny spring crosses West Burkholder Road. Right before the spring flowed into Middle it looked like other big springs opened up right by the creek. The hole that formed there was huge. The area was a little creepy (a tombstone) and swampy and hard to get around so I really wasn't able to fish it. It looked like there might be a dam that was backing the creek up here.I continued onto Wissler Road and a couple nice bridge pools but also some small dams that helped form the bridge pools. I then made a right and it certainly looked like there was dam upstream where I had seen the creek from the other side. Thanks! Jeff

 

[JeffP]

Oops I see it was Snyder county.

 

[mherb]

Do you ever present information sessions at local Library's? I work at a Library, and this could be of interest for our library users who are new to fishing.

 

[Mike]

No.