MKFS: Fishing Conditions Archive

July 9

We're experiencing some explosive high-summer fishing this year the likes of which I have never seen. The typical pattern--dead midday sandwiched between a dink-a-rama morning and a moderately hot topwater bite in the evening with a few good fish at dark--is out the window.

Last two hot-water trips--and I mean hot water, just a few degrees short of steam--were some of the best smallmouth fishing I've ever seen. On both days the fish bit continouosly all day. It was mostly smaller fish in the morning, though both days one or two in the fifteen inch range appeared before about ten am. This might be location rather than time, however, because both days the midafternoon fishing was very hot with many big fish coming in. (Yesterday's trip: 2 kids 11 and 13, their father and grandfather, boated 12 or more fish over 15 inches with two 18's and two 17's, one 22-inch walleye and another lost at boatside, not counting the guides who accounted for several more large fish including two in the 20 inch range hooked and lost in the shallow rocky water. Oy.)

Fish are also rejecting the conventional wisdom for the summer fishing report, which might be xeroxed each week from the last. Typical report: tiny crankbaits and grubs on very light line in deep pools dawn and dark, but the river's so low we're all fishing at the Wilson Bridge anyway. By the way, the Susquehanna is only "unrunnable" by those who run with gasoline engines on one-ton boats. We can run it just fine, thank you.

Our fishing report: fish big, fish fast. Midday, use Zoom Super Flukes or large light-colored flies cast far from the boat and dead drifted into the downstream quarter. Fish are holding in rocky tail-outs below moving water, expecially foamy water and foam lines which are indicative of the coolest, most oxygenated water. Darker bottom produces best. Flats with rocky, ledgy, and sandy bottom intermixed are the best water, especially if there are seams in the bottom up to three or four feet deep. At six pm switch to a big white buzzbait and run it fast, covering water and provoking the big fish, which will utterly annihilate the lure, often porpoising on it with great vigor. Last night we broke off three and had one fish break the lure in half at the boat. Once hooked up keep rod tips high and be patient as fish will bore under every sharp rock ledge and mop of grass between you and freedom. Keep drags tuned to give good hooksets but also allow easy runs for the very large ones. In shallow water the larger fish will make extended runs rather than their usual short sharp dashes for cover or deep water.

Fly guys: large light colored dahlberg divers or large poppers, worked intermittently fast and slow. Keep your tippet size up especially with fluorocarbons, and check for frays a lot. The low water has made for a bumper crop of the small sharp black snails that seem expressly designed to cut fishing line, stop rafts, abrade shins, and feed grackles. We use 12 or 16 lb. tippet. Remember that flourocarbon sinks, so it's not as good for topwater lures.

Water temperatures are astonishingly high. During the heatwave temps topped 90, with little relief even in the deepest pools. Friday surface temps approached 84, and the first few hours of evening the air temp was well below the water temp.

Free-floating algae has made the river a foul mess from the top of Brunswick pool down to the bridge at Brunswick (and below, I guess, though I haven't seen it). It stinks and floats and mats up in the grass but it hasn't slowed the fishing down much. I imagine that it's mainly a result of the low water conditions, but I also suspect that over-nitrification of the river is a factor. It seems to appear suddenly at about Weverton, uniformly across the river (ruling out a point source, I think). One more reason that we need a good, heavy, flushing rain to bring things back to normal.

Though I'll take it if the big fish keep blasting lures and jumping nine or ten times. Things are going very well, the fish are happy and vigorous, and it's time to drink a couple of gallons of water, button your chin strap, get out there.

Dave Motes

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