Where do the river fish hide when it floods?

[Fairtax4me]

Where do the fish go when your river floods? I'm curious because we just had a somewhat major flood. they don't all just get swept away. When the water clears up in a few weeks I'll be able t go right back to the spots I normally fish and see or catch fish again. So... When water levels are 20+ feet higher than normal in a flash flood or long duration rain situation, does anybody know where the fish hide? 

 

Picture is of the Charlottesville Rivanna reservoir. We've had several weeks now of off and on heavy rain storms followed up by a tropical storm and a major rain of 8-12" in about 8 hours in a localized area cause a pretty serious flash flooding this week. The Rivanna river borders the property where I work, and we had some flooding on the lower elevation areas of the property but luckily no major damage. Other places/ people nearby were no so lucky. 

[scaleface]

Thats really tough . You have to   find water out of the current . If there are creeks dumping into it that are no flowing heavily , then lookthre . If the creeks also have a lot of current , then I dont know .

 

[Troy85]

Most go into the flooded trees in the rivers I fish. Fishing gets really tough because so many of the fish are impossible to reach.  I try to find back waters with exposed banks when the rivers are at flood stage, or I just fish a different body of water.

[Log Catcher]

I wouldn't put on a boat on the water with that much current to it. You also have the safety factor of trying to avoid all the trash, limbs, and logs in the water when it is flooding. I would find a safer body of water to fish.

[flyfisher]

They go wherever they can to avoid the current.  it could be way deep under the current or up in the newly flooded areas as the current there won't be as strong.  Growing up in PA near the Delaware river a family friend who lived on the river on more than one occasion would have to take all the fish that were on her property after a flooding rain back to the river as the waters receded.  I know one lake i fish regularly here in central VA water levels are way up and for the past 3 weeks i have been catching fish way shallow in any cover that is available from docks to trees to bushes.  

[NittyGrittyBoy]

They usually are pushed way up and out of the river, cruising shallows eating bait, way up in creeks. 

 

As the river crests and starts to receed the bass will come back to the river and all will be normal again. 

 

I've always found when the rivers rising the fishing sucks, but as it starts to fall the bass fishing picks back up.

[geo g]

They often move into new flooded areas where all kinds of food sources come to the surface.  Bugs, sand worms are exposed.  Also look for areas with current,  look for slack adjacent area where bass sit in ambush mode.

[Fairtax4me]

I don't typically fish rivers when they're totally washed out or the current is so strong. Mostly just wondering what they do to get away from most of the torrent of mud and debris that are washing down the middle of the rivers when this happens. Makes sense they would seek out areas of slack current. 

[WRB]

Flash floods are very different then high water flooding. Whenever the water level raises bass tend to move up with the water into newly flooded areas and move back down as the water recedes. They do the same in a reservior, the current isn't strong.

Flash flood is usually a wall of water traveling about 26 mph that destroys everything.

Tom