Fishing Through the Drought

[saltyshores]

Thanks, Joe.

I hope that SaltyShores chimes in on your question.  He's the biologist on here.  As you can see I wet my hands like you did.  My gut reaction is that the white fungus and death you describe would have taken longer than 2 days to take place.  Maybe other factors were in play.  But like I say, I'm no expert.  So I hope the one who is chimes in.

I agree with you, Jim, that the timing of the death and developing white fungus on the trout probably would have taken longer than 2 days. My preference is to wet hands before handling fish, then the mucus coating remains quite intact. I know there have been past recommendations for anglers to handle fish with dry hands so that anglers don't need to squeeze fish hard enough to damage internal organs if they handle them with wet hands.

I would be interested to know whether the pond where the trout died had marginal summer water quality for trout. Perhaps it was too warm or did not have adequate dissolved oxygen in its cool water, causing the trout to die once those conditions occurred. We all know how hot and dry this season has been and it likely produced mortality of trout in some pond and definitely in streams.

Rick

[Jim C.]

Thanks for your input, Rick.

These light rains we've had haven't put a dent in the deficit.  They say that the remnants of Hurricane Matthew could come up the coast next weekend.  We definitely need a soaking to re-set these low flows.

I agree with you, Jim, that the timing of the death and developing white fungus on the trout probably would have taken longer than 2 days. My preference is to wet hands before handling fish, then the mucus coating remains quite intact. I know there have been past recommendations for anglers to handle fish with dry hands so that anglers don't need to squeeze fish hard enough to damage internal organs if they handle them with wet hands.

I would be interested to know whether the pond where the trout died had marginal summer water quality for trout. Perhaps it was too warm or did not have adequate dissolved oxygen in its cool water, causing the trout to die once those conditions occurred. We all know how hot and dry this season has been and it likely produced mortality of trout in some pond and definitely in streams.

Rick

[TightLinesMaine]

They say that the remnants of Hurricane Matthew could come up the coast next weekend.  We definitely need a soaking to re-set these low flows.

yes please!

[woodchip1]

Riding around up north every bridge I would cross the pools had lots of locked up trout . up to a foot long. Driest I seen it in 60 yrs.

[jacksmelt]

i think we are the only ones in the state with average flow. typically its dry in aug- sept. but we've got normal precip up here. head south 50 mi. and you see a big difference! we got a lot of heavy thunderstorms all summer that the rest of aroostook and the state didn't.

[Fishermantim]

i am worried---this was a very bad summer----2 in a row will be bad---lets hope for a wet summer in 17

This has been the second year of drought!
We started out the year with a precipitation deficit.
Remember the lack of snowfall in the northeast?
The warmer-than-usual winter?

Here in MA there are some areas that have a 8-10" deficit and even hurricane Matthew won't make much of a dent in that when it gets here!

To give a better understanding, the average storm could drop UP TO 1 inch of rain. That would mean we would need a week and a half of constant rain to bring our deficit to ZERO. Of course, that would mean massive flooding in low lying areas because of all the run-off that water would create.

Ideally, we would need a few of weeks of 1/2" rainfall days to solve the problem and not create flooding issues.
See, if the rain comes in one shot of pouring rain it just washes away and doesn't seep into the soil. If it doesn't seep in, it doesn't reach the aquifers and replenish the well waters. The majority of pouring rain just fills the sewers and washes out to sea.

Fortunately most waters may have sufficient depths to sustain fish, but not if they are fished out.
Many smaller waters dry up, die off or both.

Add to this the explosive weed growth in shallow waters (also due to the warm winter/spring) and the "dry and die" effect is magnified!

I've been fortunate enough to have a few waterways that haven't dried up AND sustained decent populations of decent sized fish.
I have avoided some waters because the conditions are to tough to navigate and the fish have enough problems to deal with!