Very strange, and I’m assuming very sad, situation at the local fishin’ ponds here in the Hudson Valley (Beacon/Wappingers at least).
One pond that was very productive for good sized large mouth bass just a few weeks ago has seemingly transformed. It’s easily two feet lower than it was just a few weeks ago, it’s got a film and gasses bubbling up, and it stinks. My son fished at sunrise for two hours and got one nibble. No floaters, so I’m hoping the bass aren’t dying off. Who knows, maybe they go dormant when drought hits, like grass. Wishful thinking!
So, we moved over to the Girl Scout pond (as we like to call it). Normally active with bass, panfish, and crappie. Like the other, this pond is a good foot and a half low. Algae taking over in spots, with no new water feeding in or going over the spillway, and it, too, smells. There is fish life/activity, but this is where it gets weird. For starters there are schools of tiny minnows, tons of them (someone had eggs that hatched), rippling all around the pond when the schools take off, assuming being chased. Every once in awhile you’ll see a fish eat a minnow near the surface. Here’s where it really gets weird. In what is usually the deep end of the pond there are hundreds (or more) of fish (bass, crappie, blue gill) just sitting there, mouths near the surface, not moving, not eating. They aren’t belly up floaters, but it doesn’t seem like a healthy situation. I speculated (and a little searching confirmed) that they are gulping air at the surface because the oxygen level in the pond is low. The optimist in me wanted to think they are just lethargic from all the minnows they are feasting on, but the realist in me fears they are dying off. My son side snagged a couple fish, it was hard not to.
Hoping some rain, if we ever get some, can turn the situation around. I’m sure fish have faced severe drought in the past and survived. I swung by the Fishkill Creek at Sarah Taylor Park a week or so ago and that was way low, too. We may hit up a local reservoir, but most of our fishing the next few weeks will likely be on Cape Cod, where things seem a little healthier.
www.capeandislands.org
nysdec.maps.arcgis.com
