An Honest and Hypocritical Look at Fishing Low Head Dams
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ก.ย. 2024
- Low head dams kill people every year. It's already happened to a young kayak angler in eastern Pennsylvania earlier this year. Low head dams are also an amazing concentrators of gamefish. In this video, I show my approach to mitigating the risk of being killed by the hydraulic at the base of a low head dam on the West Branch of the Susquehanna River.
Jeff, these low head dams and wing dams as well can be deathly. A good friend who guides on the Delaware with over 35 years of experience went over the wing dam in early Spring this year in a 20ft jet boat. He spent 50 minutes in 50 degree water and was caught in the hydraulic but miraculously was able to get out onto a rock. He was rescued by air boat and was taken to the hospital for exposure. He lost the boat and all of his gear to the river but is lucky to have survived this trip. Safety on the water 💧 is key. As always thanks for the video and great information 👍
I learned a lot of the concepts years ago, taking a swift water rescue class for whitewater paddlers. The whitewater community is good about education of this topic. The river angler community, not so much.
Low head dams are simply the worst idea the Corp of Engineers ever had. Why they don't go back and remove them all (because most of them no longer even serve the original purpose) is one of those great mysteries in life.
Sir this is great information!!! I grew up on a river with a small dam near the public boat launch. Every summer when I was in school that dam would take someone’s life. So yes sir , thank you for putting this information out!!!!
No problem Chuck.
Thanks for the great video warning people about the dangers of low head dams. We can't have enough information out there. I get informed of all the boating fatalities each year and most are paddlers - some with no PFD, some in cold water, and some at dams. I think you've covered all these subjects through your videos. Keep up the good work getting the word out!
I was torn on releasing this one. I hope it brings someone to believe that the cost of a crankbait isn’t worth their life. Breaking off is my policy at low head dams.
That spot is notorious for deaths, for almost 6 months it had a log stuck in it the size of a car, just continuously spinning a flood knocked it out. Very dangerous but can fishing can be amazing!
That section is heavily fished (both by boat and by foot at the dam). It's fairly accessible to boats even at summer level, and the summer fishing is tough. Most guys looking for lunkers run down below the next lower launch into the more traditional river section. I don't feel confident enough to run my jet boat down there at this level. I fished from my kayak in that lower section one Monday (when they have a lunker league tournament) and counted 10 boats run by, 8 inboards and 2 outboards. Ended up with a 17.75 that day though I didn't have my scale to weigh it.
There is a healthy musky population in the area, and I was almost surprised you didn't get one on the plopper.
I believe those rock piles were part of the old log booms. They are much more extensive above the dam.
I’ve read about the log booms and what it meant to ride the logs rafts down to near York, sell them, hike back up and do it again as long as there was enough water in the spring to float them down. Had to be treacherous work!
I fished the low head dam up from shady nook during my practice at susky. I could feel my yak getting pulled toward the dam when i got too close... but I know the dangers all too well from the elkhorn creek in KY. they actually took the one out right in front of jim beam distillary because every year people would go over it on purpose because creek was shallow like susky and people thought it would be fun to go over it.
People would go over it in canoes and kayaks thinking it was no big deal and then theyd flip and die. one year they had like 6 deaths.... and Jim Beam was like, "we dont use the dam anymore... that was from old days, we will donate some money to help get it removed'. and they did and the state took it out.
Good on them. You don’t want those spirits ruining the spirits.
@@TheLittleStuff Lol.
Well done and needed video. Having white water experience, including the Colorado through Grand Canyon, low head dams scare me more. Water is so powerful and totally unforgiving it needs due respect and your advice is spot on.
Thanks David. I hope this can establish a knowledge base that prevents deaths ☠️
This is a really good video. I’m getting my young son into fishing and eventually kayak fishing and this is great information for him to hear. I appreciate you putting this type of content out there.
I’m glad it’s helpful to you and your son. Stay safe, have fun!
Very insighful video. Another thing people might tend to overlook is how much a big fish can pull the kayak, especially at the moment where you set the hook and adrenalin comes suddenly. The time you realize what happens you might be already several feet away from your original location. In my country (France) we have huge wels catfish who pull like a train. We often get them accidentaly while targetting pike. In such situation I am happy to have a torqueedo ready to help compensating (partially) the strengh exerted by the fish. That said, thanks a lot for the time and effort you put in providing us with what I consider among the most pedagogic content we can find on kayak fishing at the moment.
Julian, Thanks for the compliments. I occasionally do this when I have a hooked fish that I can not move: hold the rod in one hand and back paddle with the other hand and my elbows as seen in the video linked below. It will not move your huge catfish, but I can turn a 5 lb river smallmouth with it, and advance it out of the hydraulic without it pulling me into it. Go to the four minute mark: th-cam.com/video/JPuL-I06cog/w-d-xo.html
Excellent video! The information you put out in this video will eventually save someone's life. You've done your part by telling us the risks. Us as anglers will make our own choices. There is risk every time we hit the water. Armed with the information you provided I would never go to that location.
So you see, you saved my life without even touching the water. :)
Scotty, that dam didn’t produce, but most of them kick out the best fish in that section of river. Anywhere in the country it’s the same. They just need to be fished with the expectation of mandatory break off.
People need to understand these hydraulics at these LHD's are different than standard river hydraulics. When white water rafting/kayaking there was a spot we would stop at that had a terrific hyraulic at the end of a rock chute. With a PFD you could swim down the chute and if you timed it properly you could flip over and "surf" the hydraulic on your belly until it spit you out. But that was a "dense" hydraulic with relatively high buoyancy and no downward washing machine of death underneath. These LHD's look innocuous and less dangerous than what we "surfed" but they are completely different beasts.
They are more regular. I’ve watched a log get tumbled and polished in a low head dam hydraulic for weeks. I would go back each time and look for it. It was there close to three months.
i like seeing you address the struggle of snags from river fishing and also boat control in that strong current
Wow.... this video couldn't come at a better time for me. I'm planning my next trip and several places I'll fish have dams. I am pretty sure they're low head dams . I don't get anywhere near the dam itself. Most of the dams I've fished have the warning buoy with a cable. But this is great info to know. Thanks Jeff.
No problem. Take a few casts at the boil if regulations allow, keep your distance and be ready to intentionally break off!
Good abstinence metaphor, Jeff. So true. They should be experienced like a lion or bear: At a distance. A SAFE distance.
I know you struggled making this public.But I also agree it will help more than hurt 🎣 I watched a “new fisherman “ making his you tube video almost get sucked in this spring and he had no clue in the world he almost was a done deal.When he posted the video it was scary to watch 😔
I’ve caught many 20”s at dams but my 21.5” this spring was nowhere near one 🙌
In most rivers, my best bet for finding smallmouth is on either terminus of a pool: the head or tail of it. The head of a pool that has no possible access upstream stops and concentrates fish is a dam. The tail that provides no return if they go downstream at a different level, also a dam. They naturally move upstream and downstream. This unnatural man made feature disrupts and concentrates their natural movements.
Yes, there are great places to fish away from these areas, but fishing a dam is a short cut to finding fish on unfamiliar water.
i feel the people that need to know this is tubers on rivers and creeks. normally when i hear of ppl drowing it was people who were tubing. but i like to apply to first rule of thumb when it comes to about anything i do when fishing dams and thats just dont be dumb. but hey you cant fix stupid they say, so as much as we would like to stop bad things from happening its just the way she goes. stay safe man great video
Great stuff Jeff. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!!
Glad you found it.
I like the give that a Ugly stik has at the tip for top water and the rigid base to set the hook after "one mississippi"! That soft tip is just enough to not telegraph the line pressure or rod resistance.
It works for those treble hook topwater baits.
I live in south Mississippi, and we have these things, these dams, all over the place on our rivers, most of them having been built, seventy or more years ago, when recreational boating was not nearly as prevalent and popular. I think you would have a hard time finding anyone down here, who doesn't know of at least one person who has drowned on one of these dams. If you set out to design a trap on the river to catch and drown as many people as possible, you couldn't come up with a better design than a low head dam. If they been designed differently by the Corp of Engineers (who installed most of them), say with a gradual sloping stair step face on the downstream side, there would be hundreds more people alive today and a whole lot of family tragedies averted.
That’s an interesting perspective on the downward sloping design.
Drove by a lhd in Rva a few months back told my kids to always stay away. That night it rained hard next day several paddlers went over that same dam and two died.
Whitewater paddlers should know. It’s one of the first things they teach in swift water rescue. That being said, the “fun” parts of whitewater have killer features like hydraulics.
@@TheLittleStuff I think they were rec paddlers who got in over there heads and pushed down river over the dam.
I use a very similar setup a Daiwa Rebellion 7ft Heavy Regular(moderate fast) and a Daiwa BG 3000 reel for the speed. you can really bomb a cast, topwater including frogs and with a leader heavy tubes and jigs.
Sounds like a beast set up!
I feel like The Lord had you post this with me in mind! I'm definitely gonna take your advice to heart, especially the casting distance tip as a safety measure to live by.
Jeff, have you thought about getting with a few of the Organizations/Manufacturers and championing a standardized Kayak Fisherman Education/Safety course for the masses?
I was the first kayak angler with American Canoe Association certification as a paddling instructor back in 2001. Juan Veruete did the same about 10 years later. He took it a step beyond and worked with the ACA to create a kayak fishing curriculum with Ben Lowry, a true expert in many different disciplines of paddlesports. I participated in an inaugural certification class/exam along with Jedediah Plunkert, Russell Johnson, Bear Wenzel and others. There wasn’t much movement after that, but I hear that the push to have an ACA Kayak Fishing Instructor Certification. I’m not involved in any of it this time. Education in my format, here on TH-cam is more direct, raw, accessible and unregulated. I’m working on another important skill and drill video with Jake Harshman on Wednesday. Look for it later this week.
Thanks Jeff for the work you do trying to make fishing safer! Good job.
Thanks for commenting Bruce! I hate to hear of preventable kayak fishing fatalities. Low head dams are a big source of these.
we have similar dams on a few watersheds nothing that big. Still very dangerous, I tend to avoid them.
Many states’ DNR or similar agency publish a report that chronicles the officer responses to incidents and the mortality statistics. So many anglers only know that there are a lot of fish there without knowing how many people have died there.
That’s good info. I’ve read about the hydraulic, I’ve never been that close though. I was planning on trying my hand at Dam #3 on the Upper Potomac, I still haven’t bagged a Walleye.
I do better on walleye in colder months Chuck. Also, that section of the Potomac between Little Falls and Great Falls is where I caught my first walleye. Lots of good walk in spots in that section
@@TheLittleStuff Thanks Jeff, I’ll check that spot out . 👊🏽
I think the positives of this lesson outweigh the negatives of tempting people to fish it.
It took me years to come to that conclusion and produce this video.
Are you targeting structure throwing the plopper , or are you also throwing to open water?
Tiny current features- dimples on the surface that tell you that there is something interesting below. You know, reading water.
Nice, I have fished them before and used the pedal drive to keep a safe distance, if you get sucked in though could be bad news......
I also used the power pole because it has a reverse flow you stay nose to the dam, but ya very sketchy .
I trust my ability to just stay back with the paddle, and quickly just break off snags.
Might be a good use for a bow mount motor with electronic anchor. As much as I drift and then realize it after it happens I'd better just stay away. Dock Street Dam in Harrisburg kills people regularly.
I prefer to leave it to my paddle in that instance. I’ve seen the GPS on those be wrong momentarily and move the boat hard in the wrong direction. You can actually see that happening to Roberto’s rig at the end of the Lake Dore video.
Jeff, a bit off topic from main point of video but curious about the moderate action spinning rod. Are you only using these for treble baits? Or is there versatility to other single hoop baits that you use? I am more of a spinning rod person but running out of space in the kayak. Lol. Thanks for a great channel.
Moderate action for treble hook lures is correct. They also cast greater distances. With a single hook lure that is moving, say a Chatterbait, spinnerbait, swim jig or buzzbait, a fast or moderate fast is my preference.
Great video and advice as always!
Thank you Kim!
Thanks for the great info!!
I hope it helps. Thanks Joe.
is that the sunbury damn
Nope. Williamsport on the West Branch
What up.
Enjoy your videos, but i think you should not have posted this. At least telling people how great the fishing is and then fishing it. You want to do a video about how danergeous the dams are, good for the public. There are too many ignorant "not going to happen to me" people out there who will watch this video and only hear, dams are a great place to fish. You are out on the water enough to know this and have seen this. I know exactly where you are fishing in this video and that spot is just as dangerous as Dock St.
Sean, Thanks for your comments. I struggled with the decision to publish this topic. I had the idea for this video years ago, and held off, knowing it would bring more anglers to these killing machines. But each year, I learn of more kayak anglers in particular succumbing to the hydraulics at the base of a low head dam, and realize that anglers figure out that fish are there in abundance and size. In the section of river I fished in this video, I saw about 20 anglers. One was in a jet boat by the bridges, one was at the ramp where I took out, and the other 18 were all at that dam. My decision to publish this video was one based on a thought that I can save more people by educating them about hydraulics than the anglers I would encourage to fish these spots and put them at risk. Anglers are going to figure out how good the fishing is at dams. I just hope that the message of “just break it off” conveys.
I totally get it. Don't think i was giving you a shot, I wasn't. It just seems now there are more people on the water that have no idea what they are doing. I get frustrated. Look at Dock St, we have fished there since the 90s without issue. A guy high on meth with no lights on his boat at night kills his family and now the fish commission wants to enforce the distance rules. Side note, that guy got no jail time.
I totally appreciate this video. I had no clue how dangerous that is.
Man i love the channel. I live in Pittsburgh I’d love to pick your brain about kayak vs inflatable. Do you have instagram ?
JeffLittleKayakFishing on IG