Possible new Pa. state record Flathead

Originally Posted by bulletbob

Yeah happy for the angler, its a great fish, but between those things as well as the Muskies, Smallmouth Bass, and especially Walleyes have been decimated in parts of the river... Every fall and winter we got an influx of Walleyes from the more southerly sections of the river, and now they are gone.. I used to catch a dozen on a good dusk or dawn session, and there were 10 inch "spikes" by the millions.. All gone.. I no longer catch any Walleyes in the River, after decades of catching hundreds a year,,, No one even fishes for them any longer ... SMB have been less affected since they don't migrate as much as Walleyes do, but they too have seen a nasty downturn in numbers.. Fish the size of a Flathead don't eat little rock dwelling minnows, They eat stuff a foot or more long, and the river Walleyes and SMB are right on bottom in the same space as those big hungry voracious catfish.

I could be wrong, but as the Flathead and Musky populations in the river went up, everything else went down.
Haven't caught a sunny, perch or rock bass in the river in almost 10 years either... Just as with the bass and walleyes,they were always there, until one day they weren't.... bob

Bob read this article and you might see things differently.

https://www.cbf.org/blogs/save-the-b...-comeback.html

I've read numerous articles about the impacts pollution has had on the Susquehanna impacting a number of species including smallmouths. Catfish (flatheads included) like carp have tolerances to pollution and overall water quality much different than other species. They'll flourish while other stocks succumb to water quality issues giving the appearance flatheads are cannibalizing a river.

After you read the above article about smallmouths staging a comeback after substantial environmentally driven declines, read the article in the following link titled "May 2013 - The Susquehanna River - A Fishery in Decline". Look at the pictures of the bass with assorted lesions in the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission Report. Look at the young of the year charts at the bottom of pages three and four in the May 2013 article. Farming, pesticide run off, environmental (flooding and urban run off), disease, etc. are killing the smallmouth fishery in the Susquehanna, not flatheads.

http://164.156.124.84/susq-impairment.htm

I read an article a month or so ago which identified four different diseases over the last few decades all causing catastrophic harm to the smallmouth fishery in the Susquehanna including lesions, infertility, eggs not hatching, and substantial fish die offs. I think it would be safe to assume walleyes are being effected as well. I'm sure if I look I'll find evidence of such and I'll post it here.

I'm sure flatheads eat smallmouths and walleye just as they eat carp and pan fish. They're active for only about 5 months of the year when water temperatures are above 60 usually from late May / early June through late September / early October in this area of the country. When temperatures get below 60 and during the winter, they're completely dormant and don't eat. Of the five months they're active, they don't feed during the spawn so at best they're feeding actively for maybe 4 - 5 months of the year at most.

I don't disagree they're big and like all bigger fish target larger forage. I don't believe there's any proof indigenous populations have been decimated or significantly impacted by their presence. Conversely flatheads have gotten a bad reputation as the cause of declines which in many cases have been proven to be "human population" related. We continue treating our waterways like waste dumps, the only fish able to tolerate our mistakes and survive the impacts to water quality will be catfish and carp.

Just my opinion but as I said there's a lot of documented science out there indicating problems to these big river systems is due to overpopulation, agriculture, climate change and pollution and it's negative impacts on the environment, not flatheads and muskies.