I spent the day sampling today, it was frustrating but i had some success.

First stop was Perry brook, a place that long frustrated me. Sleek torpedo shaped minnows lurk under the surface. In my experience minnows of this shape are impossible to net (and mostly chubs). Last year i tried a hook and line (and got only a pumpkinseed and a perch) and minnow traps (which got nothing). Earlier in the week I looked here and saw many minnows, today I only saw one small sucker. I tried seining but my seine kept snagging on the many submerged logs here. I tried dip netting but saw no fish to net. I got a couple crayfish which I threw back. Once again petty brook thwarts me!

I then walked along a stretch of martin brook i sometimes have luck at. But i didn't go sampling as I saw almost no fish. The only fish I saw was in a puddle connected to the main river where flood water was receding, it was a small pickeral who swam circles in a panic upon seeing me and eventually excaped to the main river through the puddles narrow outlet channel. Thus the fish saved itself from death when it's puddle finally evaporates.

I then decided to try my siene at Ashuelot River Parks namesake river. I have caught darters dip netting here before and a variety of fish on hook and line in the past. Today I caught only common shiners from fry sized to an inch and a half long. Their were so many that i could see a growth continuum and realize they all seem to be the same.









I took some fry for fish food and a couple larger ones for my minnow tank. My aerator was out of batteries so a few died on the way, i got to observe a curious effect of the minnows in my tank showing terror over a dead common and refusing to move beyond it to feed when i added dried bloodworms. (I later removed the dead of course).

Minnows can excrete a panick pheramone thru the skin when the skin is broken, such as a lost scale, bite mark...ect. It helps warn others of the school when a predator has attacked recently that theres danger. Interesting enough I read once several years ago, in an issue of a fishing magazine, that predators like pike will deficate away from their normal hunting areas as if trying to avoid leaving its last meals pheramone marker in a hunting spot.