I fish the river anywhere Clarks Ferry down to TMI and for the last month catching 2 fish in 6 hours is a good day. Lots of theories on what happened and it's probably a combination of many factors. I've been fighting with fish commission to close ALL fishing on the river from April 20th through June 15th in order to allow the spawn to be successful. Too many idiots fish the beds and by the time they land the fish and snap a few photos they're a quarter mile down stream and the bed has been wiped out by other fish.
The only way I see to restore the river is close it for all fishing during the spawn and make the penalty for violation extremely painful. Something like forfeiture of all fishing gear including any boat you may be fishing from, lifetime ban on PA fishing, and a large fine.
I'd also like to see a few years of no harvest or at least put a total harvest of all fish, except flatheads, to something reasonable like 5 fish per day per person, combined species.
Have you seen this article? Again, I'm in NEPA and the fishing is still fine up here, but you guys would know best, spending time on the water.
https://www.post-gazette.com/life/o...sylvania-smallmouth-bass/stories/201908080030
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Mystery solved: Susquehanna River smallmouth bass are back
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LNP Lancaster Online
AUG 8, 2019
8:00 AM
A college laboratory is credited with solving a maddening mystery: What killed so many smallmouth bass in the lower Susquehanna and Juniata rivers, beginning in 2005?
The answer, which came as a surprise to some Pennsylvania and federal investigators, is largemouth bass virus.
At the time, several environmental problems were impacting the river, in particular a mystery disease that left sores and open wounds on young smallmouths. Scientists couldn’t agree on its source for more than a decade. But now the disease has virtually disappeared.
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“Like it never happened, but it did,” said Darrell Franks, a Greensburg fisherman whose family has fished near their camp in York County since the 1960s. “A lot of guys still won’t fish the Susquehanna because of the disease, but that’s their mistake. The fishing is better than ever.”
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Mr. Franks and his brother caught and released 11 smallmouths in the 15- to 19-inch range in about four hours near the islands off Wrightsville last week.
From its branches in New York and northcentral Pennsylvania, the Susquehanna bisects the state, rolling nearly 465 miles through Harrisburg to Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. It is one of the oldest rivers on Earth, older even than the Appalachian Mountains. Its 27,500-square-mile watershed drains nearly half the state, including many waters fished by Western Pennsylvania anglers. The Juniata River, Little Juniata, West Branch Susquehanna, Yellow Breeches Creek, Penns Creek, LeTort Spring Run, Pine Creek, Spring Creek and tributaries reaching as far west as Indiana County feed into the Susquehanna River.
The disease that impacted the smallmouths is common among largemouths and cannot infect humans. When well cooked, afflicted fish are safe to eat despite the ick factor. Investigators knew early on that the disease was present in Susquehanna smallmouths but it had been ruled out as the cause of the lesions. Scientists believed it couldn't hurt them.
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It turned out that largemouth bass virus can be lethal to smallmouths when shallow water near river banks, where young bass generally live, becomes stagnant and warm. In that environment, the virus does not kill but causes lesions and sores where bacteria and fungus enter the fish’s body, eventually killing them.
Science, conservation and politics didn’t eliminate the disease. As some researchers had always expected, nature healed itself. Mr. Franks said there have never been so many big bass in his neck of the river.
The mystery was solved by scientists at Michigan State University who injected smallmouth bass from a Pennsylvania fish farm with the virus. Their experiments proved that mortality increased when the fish were in summerlike warm water.
Either the current generation of Susquehanna smallmouths have built an immunity to the virus or it has mutated in a way that no longer impacts bronzebacks. A catch-and-release regulation on 98 miles of the river, and nearly 32 miles of the Juniata River, seem to have given the fish the space they needed to survive. Fishing for smallmouths has rebounded since 2017. Some anglers say it is as good today as in the early 1990s.
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"The thought is [the virus] has kind of run its course, for the most part," said state Fish and Boat Commission biologist Geoff Smith. "We've seen low levels of the disease since 2012 and reduced mortality."
Nevertheless, Mr. Smith has several concerns.
The virus may erupt in other Pennsylvania smallmouth fisheries under warm-water and low-flow conditions. Climate change may increase that likelihood, Smith says. And while Susquehanna smallmouths may have built up a resistance, the virus could mutate and come back with a vengeance.
The river’s other big problems still worry Fish and Boat staff.
"We'll never know how much of the mortality is from largemouth bass virus alone," said Mr. Smith. "All that could play into additional stress, but we're not sure how at this point."
Agricultural runoff continues to increase the stress level among Susquehanna fish, and bass with both male and female sex organs continue to turn up with no defined cause.
"In the course of this investigation, we've uncovered a lot of other not-so-nice things in the Susquehanna that need to be cleaned up," said Mr. Smith.
Biologists are concerned about a class of chemicals known as endocrine disruptors that can interfere with hormone systems. Possible sources could be pharmaceuticals flushed down toilets that end up in sewage plants, runoff of herbicides and pesticides from farm fields and suburban yards, as well as unwise disposal of household chemicals.
But Fish and Boat’s electrofishing sampling has shown smallmouth catch rates similar to what they were in the early 1990s. And even before the harvest ban, more anglers were practicing catch and release than ever before, so more big bass are out there.
“If we keep things going the way they're going, we should see that for quite some time unless something like this virus crops up again," said Mr. Smith.
Mr. Franks said he’s conflicted about whether to spread the news about the return of the Susquehana smallmouths.
“It’s nice to have the whole river to ourselves,” he said.
Post-Gazette outdoors editor John Hayes contributed to this story.
First Published August 8, 2019, 8:00am