Neglect destroyed a world-class bass fishery at Florida’s Lake Apopka. Fifty years later, is history about to repeat itself on Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna River, as well as Chesapeake Bay, which it flows into? Since 2005, anglers and fisheries biologists with the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) have noted lesions and sores on smallmouth bass, as well as a declining population because of what is believed to be disease-related delayed mortality in young-of-year fish. In 2013, the Washington Post noted that Susquehanna’s smallmouth bass might be the “canary in a coal mine” regarding the river’s health. Last June, the U.S. Geological Survey found intersex bass, likely a consequence of endocrine-disrupting chemicals, in three Pennsylvania waterways, with the highest incidence in the Susquehanna.
More recently, officials documented the first cancerous tumor. The discovery made media headlines both because of its rarity and the ominous overtones that it conveys regarding the health of this river that provides 50 percent of the fresh water flowing into Chesapeake Bay, site of a recent Elite Series tournament. Continue reading-http://www.activistangler.com/journal/2015/9/4/sick-susquehanna-bass-fishery-needs-your-help.html