Susquehanna Fishing Report for September

by Lance Dunham

Finding a topic for this months article took some mind searching. After looking around in that cobweb mind of mine I came up with a few to choose from. There was “How to fish in flood waters”, or “How to navigate flood waters on top of your favorite fishing camp”, or maybe “Finding fish on Main Street”.  I could go on but you get the drift, oh there I go again.

  The river was already muddy or at least dirty brown from what rain we got from the outside edge of the Hurricane a couple of weeks before. I had just finished a charter on the 6^th where we caught 30 some fish in the heavy rain and the river came up a foot while we were out there. We noticed almost all of the campers were all still on the campgrounds where they had been all summer. A mistake we all would soon regret. During the next few days I had rescheduled my charters for the following week as the river jumped up to historic proportions. When the computer flood gauge went above the 30ft mark I knew it all had to be a bad situation.

  I went over to the river to see how my fish camp made out as soon as I could find a passable road. Of course like many I found devastation all over. My camp was built in 1974 after the Agnes flood of 1972 and built high enough off the ground and river to withstand all the 100 year floods or that is what I was told. There was too much debris to drive the last couple hundred yards so I parked “Big Blue” the “Pimpmobile” as we all endearingly call it with all the sponsor decals and walked in. The area was hardly recognizable. The foundation was still mostly there and to my surprise so was the outside deck that was fastened to the top floor. The camp however was down river crumpled   up and flat as my wifes pancakes.

  Being self employed means if you don’t work you don’t get paid so I was very interested in getting back on the river. I was also very surprised that there was no mud on the river access by the camp. With all the rumors that the fish were either washed away, beat up on the rocks or thousands were stranded and died were wide spread on the internet. I knew I had to check this out for myself and quickly. The muddy conditions didn’t concern me for we have been fishing in mud since spring and knew how to fish in that environment. With a buddy along to help we went out for a few hours to prefish five spots along the river within a seventeen mile stretch. We stopped at each place, caught a bass and moved along to the next. I a few hours I had my answer that confirmed what I knew to be true. We were back!

   You see for most of the river the rocks are shore to shore and the fish just tuck themselves down on the bottom behind thousands of rocks, out of the way of the flood waters for the most part. There have been several floods since Agnes and the fish did just fine. I had a charter the next day with a guy that had fished in the mud with me in the spring. He knew that I would find him some fish somewhere or his charter was free anyway and he was anxious as I was to try it out. He and I fished the day and caught 30 smallmouth bass and a channel cat by using big black tubes with heavy weights along with hair jigs and fishing slack water eddys. None of the fish were beat up and were fat and full of life. The river dropped in height quickly and cleared up to a dirty green stain in less than ten days after the flood. Our fish counts went to sixty one, then fifty one, then ninety nine, eighty seven, One hundred and five with just one client and one hundred and three as of the 25^th of this month. Sounds like the fish survived just fine if you ask me.

  However you have to pick the correct lures and presentations to get these higher numbers of fish. Picking the right lure for each water depth, clarity, and current speed is key for consistently catching fish. I usually carry four or five rods beside me in the boat and am constantly changing during the charter to find the highest producing lure for the conditions presented. Right now I’ll have a jerk bait, crank bait, spinner bait, a plastic jig, and a hair jig. If the river clears up enough, there will be a surface bait there soon. After awhile you will know which lure to use just by looking at the water.

  As for the wildlife, they are all back now. The eagles, kingfishers and ducks. We are seeing some dandy bucks now along with some gobbler turkeys if you get out at the right time of day.

 Now I know I just said the fish didn’t get hurt at all but that meant the 8” fish and up that we catch on our lures. This years fry along with the one and two year old fish being so small and weak could have been greatly hurt, there is no way for me to know until the Fish Commission does their shocking program next year. That means we should conserve what we have and practice catch and release sport fishing at least until we get next years report. These small fish could represent up to three years of replacement fish and we may find ourselves in the same predicament as the Main Stem of the Susquehanna is in right now with few fish for even sport fishing.

  With October starting, the minimum keeping size of smallmouth bass goes up to 15” and those are 7 to 8yr old fish here in the upper North Branch. These are our main breeder fish and should never be kept if we have any interest at all of seeing our children and grandchildren enjoy the same quality of angling as we do.

  Well that’s all for this month, lets hope that next month is much dryer. In the meantime be safe out there and I’ll see you on the river. For further reports and daily information along with charter openings and photos, please visit my website at www.ldguideservice.com or on my Facebook page under Lance Dunham.