I got a Olympus X-560 WP. I was hoping to test it's underwater abilities but i never got around to as it's memory card only holds a meager 7 pictures. It's not as good at macro shots as my nikon coolpix (which I didn't bring) So this trip report on sampling and fish watching will mostly be text.

I went to grassy pond as this place is the closest one with creek chubsucker according to fish and game. I tried sampling this spot last year with Jan with little luck.

Seining and dipnetting a pond is difficult compared to a stream, the pond was a bit shallow so instead of being by the shore like in streams fish were often 3 to 5 feet out, making it easy for them to excape when solo seining. (if I try solo seining faster I step on the net and ruin it so fish would excape).

Small largemouth bass were the most common fish their. Fry and fingerlings are everywhere. The only pic my new camera took that was good enough for the fish to be identifiable was a bass. I wish I had my other camera with me.



As well as largemouth bass I caught alot of small perch. I also seen a tight ball of black tadpole like creatures, a dipnetting showed they were baby bullheads. It makes me wonder about the scene I saw as a kid where two bullheads devoured two schools of tightly packed tadpoles, could they have ate bullhead fry instead?

I did a bit of diving with a mask and snorkel to scout out fish. I saw mixed schools of perch, pumpkinseed and bass. A few chain pickeral, and in deeper water their were golden shiners.

Swimming back to shore I noticed an unusual cyprinid with features I was not familiar with. It was fat bodied, a high body build but not as high to be spadelike as in a golden shiner. It also had a unique coloration, brownish with noticable back scales, two lateral stripes, a black lateral stripe with a white lateral stripe above it. Is this the creek chubsucker? I wish I paid more attention to the mouth. Their was a school of five inch ones and later a school on 1 or 2 inch ones. Neither of which I could catch. I kept trying to dipnet and seine them until they would no longer return.

I tried walking in the weeds trying to find them in the direction they fled in but could not see any more.

I also accidentally caught a chain pickeral. Walking back to shore i put my net dow in the water and had it trail behind me not thinking of it, when i got to shore I had a 3 inch chain pickeral in it.

I didn't catch the odd cyprinid (could it be the chubsucker) but I did catch almost all the warmwater species fisherman love with only the pumpkinseed (and the possible chubsucker) avoiding me. getting bass, perch, pickeral, and bullhead is considered a good day fishing with rod and reel, i wonder if tiny ones make for a good sampling day.

A few observations I made.

fry sized to 2 inch largemouth bass are amazingly easy to catch, 4-6 inch ones are very wary and evade you easilly. Does something change in their ability to percieve and respond to threats as they grow?

I also wonder why perch and pumpkinseed (and in this odd case similar sized bass) school together. What do they get from this partnership?

Also what is with the "guard fish" in mixed schools? a few years ago i approached a mix of persh and sunfish and one sunfish turned to face me and stare me down and the rest left, today a bass in a mixed school did the same thing.

Minnow sized chubsuckers have that slightly humped look but most distinct is a bronzy highlite between the black stripes. It positively glows and looks tropical under the sun but fades fast in bucket or tank. Also the two top black lines run from nose tip up and over the back close to the very top.
Another of those "Once you see one..." species.

Edited by mikez, 04 July 2010 - 10:00 AM.

FYI, I found bridle shiner mixed with juvie chubsuckers and looking very similar in the same area you are in. Not sure of legal status in NH these days.
Check your bucket careful before going home.