September: More studies, less fishing, and lots of changes

So, September is finally here! September is an awesome month to fish, as weather starts to cool down a bit at the beginning of fall, and certain species of fish start to feed again. Unfortunately, September also means that my college classes started (Fall Semester). Therefore, I'll have to study much more to maintain high standards at college, and I'll have much less time to fish in the following couple months. Therefore, I ask you all to be a little bit more comprehensive, and understand that life is just like this: it's arranged on priorities. If you do, that's great. If not, I hope you consider understanding it (at least). Concluding: I'll be writing "less frequently" in my blog in the following months.

As you can see, I put that "less frequently" in quotes. I'll explain why: the fact that my classes started does not mean that the Blog will NOT be updated. As a matter of fact, I'll keep updating it every once in a while (when I go outside fishing, for example), and often post some informative data on fishing/fish (I'm writing a guide on "catfishing", for example). The problem with the posting, though, is the fact that from now onwards you may see 2 or 3 posts at the same day instead of one post today, one post 3 days after, 1 post next week, and so on. Therefore, the difference will be that I'll post less frequently in terms of days, but I'll have almost the same amount of monthly posts at the end of each month. Simple, isn't it?

Fishing has been quite productive after Irene passed: after all that rain, certain watersheds had their levels of water increased; not to mention many other changes around Philly...

For example:

1. A lot of trees fell at small creeks. I'm sure Wissahickon, Pennypack, and Tacony creeks have much more structure for fish than before.

2. New "holes" and habitats were created by the alteration of the water currents due to heavy rain. Places are very unpredictable right now: some areas that did not have fish may have fish, and some other areas may be empty. Surprisingly, I saw some hybrid Carp swimming around certain portions of the Pennypack creek that I never saw before.

3. Floods usually let fish travel from one place to another. There's a particular pond in a certain creek that should be full of trout by now, if nobody fished that place yet. Also, I do not know if the FDR park lakes flooded to a level that the ponds connected with each other. However, if it did, the Snakehead population there is even more dispersed than before.

These are only some examples of how a certain natural event can change the aquatic biodiversity so much. There are so many variables when it comes to fishing, and that's what makes fishing so unpredictable.

It's really up to us to study each one of these variables, get familiar with them, and increase our chances of success.

Best of luck for all of us!

Long days and pleasant nights,

sincerely,

Leo S.