Delaware bass fall off the Fishcal Cliff
It’s the first full week of the new year but I have 2011 on my mind. In fact I’m really thinking about 2010 and 2009 and 2008, indeed all the way back to the early 1990s.
Presently I’m not pondering 2012 because there’s no report on that year -- yet. It takes the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission a little time to prepare the result of fish surveys for public and press consumption so we won’t see a lot of the work that was done in ‘12 until about mid-summer.
Indeed, it’s taken me just as long to write about the latest important report. There were just too many other pressing issues.
In this case, the spot light is on smallmouth bass in the Delaware River.
Unfortunately the belated news isn’t so hot.
In short, young smallmouth in parts of the Mighty D – in places Pottstown- area anglers love to fish -- went of the fishcal cliff.
The latest PFBC report shows that 2011 just wasn’t a good year for young bass (YOY) on the border river.
That shouldn’t impact your smallmouth fishing this year because it takes a couple of seasons for bass to grow to a legal and respectable size. Then again, baby fish numbers were super good in 2007 and 2008 and mildly good in 2010 all of which should have a positive relationship to this year’s smallmouth fishing on portions of the Delaware River.
In fact, after looking through the numbers I’ve decided to spend a bunch of time this summer fishing for smallmouth on the Delaware, but with my fingers crossed. You see, what the survey numbers indicate is a lot like the scientific results on climate change studies– they show it’s happening, you just don’t where it’s really going. Indeed, the 2009 numbers were also terrible which means a missing year-class along the entire river and some clinker seasons down the road.
As you read through all the yearly numbers keep in mind that it takes about three-and-half years for smallmouth to reach 12-inches in length and about four years to gain another three inches to the angler-impressed 15 inches. Sometimes it happens that a YOY class will reach the 12-inch line a year earlier than normal – as in the famous 1997 YOY class in the lower Delaware (Bucks County) that provided quality fishing in 2000 and continued on through 2002.
Of course, the yearly growth depends on food and habitat. Fortunately there are plenty of both along the Delaware River. In addition, the river – which runs for almost 200 miles above the Trenton tide line -- is an amalgam of sections. It can, and does, have varying smallmouth numbers in its diverse areas.
The positive 2010 YOY survey results found numbers at or above the median in both the middle and lower sections of the Delaware. (The middle section is defined from Port Jervis, New York downstream to the Lehigh River; the lower section is from the Lehigh River at Easton to Yardley. The upper Delaware, above Port Jervis, had no survey results in 2010.)
The nearly 25-year median for YOY smallmouth differs for each area indicating that, historically, one wide zone is better than another. Specifically, the lower river has a median of five young smallmouth per targeted survey distance; the middle river median is two fish and the upper river median is just one. Understand the upper river section also includes the cold-water zone where trout are the featured species. I know spots in the upper section that are just as good as any from Easton downstream to Trenton.
Then came the not-so-merry 2011 survey filed by PFBC river biologist, Daryl Pierce, and area fisheries manager, Mike Kaufmann. But don’t blame the messengers. If wasn’t for their team’s work, we wouldn’t know any of this.
From the upper through the lower Delaware, the 2011 survey results for YOY smallmouth were extremely poor. In all three sections, the numbers fell below the median to about only one young smallmouth per targeted survey distance of 50 meters.
Compare this to 2008 when the count was 16 in the lower river and 5 in the middle river – actually five wasn’t so hot but it’s a lot better than one and still exceeded the median.
As I understand the 2011 survey, it means than in about three seasons, say 2014, there will be a dearth of smallmouth in the twelve-inch range. And since 2009 wasn’t so good …well.
You may recall that last summer I wrote about the middle Juniata River where I had just caught some excellentsize smallmouth. However I did not see many fish between 13 and 16 inches so, I suspect, trophy fish will probably be fewer this year. Fortunately I caught a bunch of 11-to-13 inch bass which bodes well for the presence of some moderately decent-size fish for this coming summer. This is what I mean about the complexity of interpreting these reports.
The survey results on the Delaware River from 2010 will certainly have an impact on this summer’s fishing – and even those results were mixed.
In the lower Delaware River -- where I would expect most Pottstown-area anglers to head – the YOY count was just at the median, five fish per targeted survey area. In the middle river the 2010 count was three and the upper Delaware the count was six. This said, it might be worth exploring the better warmwater areas of the upper Delaware this summer.
Of course the 500-pound gorilla in the closet is disease: fungal infections skin lesions and such. As the report states, this is of “great concern … given disease prevalence in the Susquehanna River Basin and reductions in abundance observed there.”
Prior to 2011, “the occurrence of disease bass in the Delaware River was nominal” although some unhealthy fish were found. Last summer’s survey discovered diseased fish at Yardley and Point Pleasant. A prolonged heatwave which raised water temperatures above stress levels was the possible cause.
“These occurrences (of diseased fish) were not expected to have a detrimental effect on the overall Delaware River population, given the healthy status of bass in the upper river reaches,” said the report.
Let’s hope so.