More than 350 fish, including 33 eels, rescued from pools in Susquehanna River passageway near fabridam

Trent Fessler, of Sunbury, releases a variety of different fish, including some eels, that were caught from pools in the fish passageway around the fabridam near Shamokin Dam.

Riverkeeper note: The following is an overview of a fish rescue/research project along the passageway near the fabridam by Sunbury. It is the third time for this project. Check out the pool work done on Dec. 19, 2024, in this post and Nov. 27, 2024, in this post. Consider getting involved in this or other areas of our work via a membership.

​More than 350 fish – including 33 eels – were caught, identified, measured, recorded and released into the Susquehanna River out of three small pools within the fish passageway around the Shamokin Dam side of the fabridam on Monday, Oct. 20, 2025, as part of a three-way partnership between the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association, Susquehanna University and DCNR.

“To me, the biggest story is the 33 eels,” said Matt Wilson, director of Susquehanna University’s Freshwater Research Institute. “However, it is also unfortunate that these pools also seem to be a habitat for juvenile flathead catfish, of which 11 were found.”

The passageway was built two years ago as a way for fish to navigate around the inflatable dam structure when bags were filled during the boating season, from before Memorial Day weekend until sometime after Labor Day. This year, the dam was deflated last week after Columbus Day, according to Ben Bender, the new manager of the Shikellamy State Park.

As water levels in the river lower, it cuts off the flow from going down the fish passageway, “which had stopped running around Thursday of last week,” said Bender. “The electrofishing effort in our nature-like fish passage helps get fish out of pools that are otherwise trapped. It helps document what species we have and then allows us to get them back into the river.”

It was the second year for this effort, a process that happened twice late last fall according to Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper John Zaktansky.

“Then-park manager Drew Leidich had reached out to us about helping get fish out of pools because people walking by were concerned about them being trapped there and this was several weeks to a month after the dam had been deflated,” he said. “This year, we wanted to get the process started much earlier to see what species were in the passageway without as much impact by various predators, and surprisingly, the fish were in much worse shape this year in a much shorter amount of time.”

Wilson agreed, pointing out that 296 of the fish caught were from the first pool, 51 from the second and only eight from the third – with numerous dead fish already surrounding the second two pools.

“I think it's pretty remarkable the pools became completely disconnected on Thursday and by Monday two of the three were nearly fishless,” he said. “We saved a lot and acted as fast as we could, but it still wasn't fast enough for two of the pools with the low water and warm weather this fall.”

While conditions were definitely different this year vs. last fall, it is important, Zaktansky urged, to realize that there is still a learning curve to this process.

“We are still developing the baseline. There isn’t exactly an owner’s manual on exactly what to expect with these sort of things and there are so many variables with weather and other conditions,” he said. “Just figuring out what species are more conducive to using this sort of passageway vs. others is interesting. We know there are certain fish species that are plentiful in the river that we haven’t seen yet in these pools and then there are others, like the eels and bass and various darters and other small species that seem to be drawn to it.

“The bottom line so far is that it is definitely being used, and that consistently the past two years now the upper pool is much more diverse than the lower pools which seems to suggest that fish are moving down the passageway especially as water levels are receding when the bags lower. But, there is still obviously much to learn.”

​Upstream pool:
American eel: 28 (largest 790 mm and 1205 g; smallest 160 mm and 29 g)
Smallmouth:  83 (largest 288 mm and 296 g; smallest 114 mm and 18 g)
Channel catfish: 7 (185-245 mm and 45.8-105.5 g)
Walleye: one 565 mm and 1270.8 g
Rock bass: 23 (104-180 mm and 22-123 g)
Flathead catfish: 7 (75 - 279 mm and 5.4-202 g)
Other species: River chub, river redhorse (sucker), swallowtail shiner, rosy-faced shiner, rosy-side dace, fallfish, margin madtom, green darter, tessellated darter, fantail darter, banded darter, mimic shiner, red-ear sunfish
Total count: 296
 
Middle pool:
Key species: Five eels, four flathead, two smallmouth, three channel catfish, ten rock bass
Total count: 51
 
Downstream pool:
Key species: Three smallmouth
Total count: 8