Smallmouth insanity NY state

[bulletbob]

No, not a NJ report, but not that far away, and a few NJF members do fish the susquehanna river each year..
Last week, i got about 25 keep size SMB in 2 hours fishing in my 14 footer.. Nice 21 inch walleye as well..
Knowing the fishing will be shutting down soon, within a week or two depending on weather. I got out a few hours this afternoon, this time from shore.. Too rainy windy and nasty to trailer the boat...
I started pitching small plastics at exactly 12 PM in the afternoon.
First 3 casts yielded 3 nice size SMB, and the 4th cast was a hookup that came unbuttoned.. I could tell it was going to be a crazy bite, and started counting.. just because...

Caught SMB #25 at 1:15 PM.. decide to try for 30..
Caught #30 at 1 :45.. decided to try for 35..
Caught #35 at 2:15
#40 at 2:45... said , the hell with it, I want to try for 50..
at 3:30. I caught #47, got snagged and broke off AGAIN for about the 10th time, got disgusted, was windy and cold as hell, so i quit at 47 SMB in 2 1/2 hours.. All except 3 were keeper size. most between 12-15 inches...
I have has a few couple hour stretches on the river where I caught 25 or 30, but never 47.. Also I was snagged a LOT and had to retie... Almost every single cast for the entire time was a landed fish, a dropped hookup, or a retrieve that was hit at least 2-3 times... Crazy to see gorgeous SMB in massive numbers like this.. Happens every year in Nov... ONLY Nov.. Shuts off around Dec 1, warm years maybe until the 2nd week..
The rest of the year the southern tier NY section of the river runs a nasty looking brownish green with algae slicks, muck, and stink , and I catch little to nothing a lot of trips.. A good day I might catch a few bass and a walleye or two in May, but by June the water looks disgusting, and fishing is pretty slow for most guys until it clears up and cools down in late fall, after most of the leaves are off the trees...

All of these fish were caught within 100 feet or so of where I parked my truck.. I was catching 15 fish in a row at times standing on the same rock ...

Its funny, after an hour i was actually bored.. Very seldom do i catch so many nice size gamefish that i get weary of it, but today was one of those days... Now all i have to do is figure a way to catch these river bass in numbers like this the rest of the year..
I don't keep many bass at all during any given year, but did keep 2 today, because thats all there is to keep to eat unless you get a Walleye.. No perch, rock bass, trout, sunnies etc, so if you want to eat a few fish, its bass.. I only take them late in the year when the water is cold and a little cleaner looking.

Some guys here might be familiar with the Pa section of the river, but the NY section is different, and dirtier.. Its mostly mud bottom, and flows through dairy farms until it reaches Binghamton/Vestal, where it gets bombarded from the sewage plants and storm drains ..

Anyway, you must know which sections hold fish, and when you hit one of the areas with "good bottom" on the right day , like today, the sheer numbers of bass in some parts of this river is astounding... bob

[FASTEDDIE29]

I've seen this mayhem Bob! I know what your talking about thanks to a few friends. These friends lived in PA however but man, as for Smallies stacking up in rivers, the Susky is the river to visit in the NE! I used to visit this river a lot and your post may have rekindled my love for another near by river. Hopefully I'll visit it again!

As for your catching!!! Who catches 47 Smallies in less than 3 hours? Anglers that fish the Susky! Haha! Great post and phenom action from a very close to home river! Big river systems kick ass. I love them all! Thanks for reporting dude! It's been a while!!!

[AndyS]

I know this is PA but does it help in NY ???

Williamsport, Pa. – In a move that some viewed as more symbolic
than biologic, Pennsylvania Fish & Boat commissioners voted to
slap no-kill bass-fishing rules on long sections of the Susquehanna
and Juniata rivers in the face of a continuing collapse of their
once-celebrated smallmouth populations.

In an early October meeting here, commissioners underscored the
urgency of their decision by authorizing agency Executive Director
John Arway to make a temporary emergency declaration to limit bass
fishing to only catch and immediate release on 130 miles of
river.

Arway’s emergency order allows the change to take effect Jan. 1,
2011 – much sooner than if the new regulation had to proceed along
the customary course for adoption, waiting for a public-comment
period, a second approval vote by commissioners and then published
in the Pennsylvania Bulletin.

The regulations will apply to approximately 32 miles of the
Juniata River, from the State Route 75 Bridge at Port Royal in
Juniata County downstream to the mouth of the river at Duncannon,
Perry County.

On the Susquehanna, the regulations cover 98 miles, from the
inflatable dam near Sunbury in Northumberland County downstream to
the Holtwood Dam in York County.

[bulletbob]

Originally Posted by FASTEDDIE29

I've seen this mayhem Bob! I know what your talking about thanks to a few friends. These friends lived in PA however but man, as for Smallies stacking up in rivers, the Susky is the river to visit in the NE! I used to visit this river a lot and your post may have rekindled my love for another near by river. Hopefully I'll visit it again!

As for your catching!!! Who catches 47 Smallies in less than 3 hours? Anglers that fish the Susky! Haha! Great post and phenom action from a very close to home river! Big river systems kick ass. I love them all! Thanks for reporting dude! It's been a while!!!

I have seen it like this a bunch of times.. however, more often, you would SWEAR there wasn't a fish in the river. I'll never understand it... Up here, the river is really turbid starting in late may, even in good weather, and gets chocolate brown for a week or more with any kind of rain.. Lots of years its unfishable for weeks on end.. Also the river is choked with bait when the weather warms up.. Mayfly hatches every night that turn the ground white for a mile around the river, and the fish simply won't eat anything on a hook even crayfish or live Hellgrammites.. Maddening.. Then, late in the fall, the water cools down and starts clearing up, and in the rocky spots the SMB are stacked up like nothing i had ever seen.. Honestly a good fisherman that starts at daybreak, and fishes a day could catch over 100 bass, all good size too. Its a strange fishery, but when its hot its on fire...

[bulletbob]

Originally Posted by AndyS

I know this is PA but does it help in NY ???

Williamsport, Pa. – In a move that some viewed as more symbolic
than biologic, Pennsylvania Fish & Boat commissioners voted to
slap no-kill bass-fishing rules on long sections of the Susquehanna
and Juniata rivers in the face of a continuing collapse of their
once-celebrated smallmouth populations.

In an early October meeting here, commissioners underscored the
urgency of their decision by authorizing agency Executive Director
John Arway to make a temporary emergency declaration to limit bass
fishing to only catch and immediate release on 130 miles of
river.

Arway’s emergency order allows the change to take effect Jan. 1,
2011 – much sooner than if the new regulation had to proceed along
the customary course for adoption, waiting for a public-comment
period, a second approval vote by commissioners and then published
in the Pennsylvania Bulletin.

The regulations will apply to approximately 32 miles of the
Juniata River, from the State Route 75 Bridge at Port Royal in
Juniata County downstream to the mouth of the river at Duncannon,
Perry County.

On the Susquehanna, the regulations cover 98 miles, from the
inflatable dam near Sunbury in Northumberland County downstream to
the Holtwood Dam in York County.

the river gets pounded in Pa.. harrisburg area especially..

Here in NY its hardly fished at all.. most days on the river i am alone, and its been that way for decades. we have the Finger lakes to the north, and the delaware/catskill stream/ reservoir complex to the east.. the susky is an afterthought here, mainly because its a warm water fishery in an area where its mostly cold water fishermen.. in my area, when guys say they are going fishing, they mean going out on the big lakes with downriggers trolling for salmonids.. Guys like me that prefer light tackle jigging/casting/bait fishing are not near as common, and the rivers that don't hold trout are pretty much unfished..

Pa also has sever problems with farms killing the river.. they are also killing the finger lakes, but thats another story... Here's a good read on whats happening to the river...http://america.aljazeera.com/article...annariver.html

[thmyorke1]

47 smallies... I'm trying to do the math: it's too many smallies for my mind to process! Amazing.

[bulletbob]

Originally Posted by thmyorke1

47 smallies... I'm trying to do the math: it's too many smallies for my mind to process! Amazing.

It really is,.. I could have caught a ton more as well, they were still biting like crazy, but I was tired of retying rigs.. Lost probably 10 jigs/plastics in the rocks, and I simply had enough.. It was actually getting boring.. too easy.
the bottom had to be paved with bass, as I caught all those fish within a few feet of one another.. tried another spot 10 minutes down the road that I know and not a even a touch despite lots of rocks, deep water, current breaks , a large feeder stream that creates all kinds of upwellings and eddies, looks SO fishy,, Not a hit.. This river has SO much dead water that it remains very lightly fished.. However, there are sections where there are just a ton of fish, and I know where one of them is...

[AndyS]

I think you are correct, many anglers go up that way looking for the cold water trout fishing in the lakes, rivers and streams but overlook the great smallmouth fishery there.

[bulletbob]

Originally Posted by AndyS

I think you are correct, many anglers go up that way looking for the cold water trout fishing in the lakes, rivers and streams but overlook the great smallmouth fishery there.

Its all trout all the time... mostly trolling with downriggers, dipseys, lead core, wire.. Blech,, not my bag. I would rather anchor up with a couple dozen worms, and catch sunnies, perch, rockies, bass, etc... bob