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Early Sampling

Started by Guest_exasperatus2002_* , Mar 23 2011 02:03 PM

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#1 Guest_exasperatus2002_*

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Posted 23 March 2011 - 02:03 PM

With the recent spurt of warm weather we had, until last nights snow....has anyone been out sampling? ANy pics? Does anyone have pics of a tesselated darter in breeding dress? I havent seen one yet. When would be a good time to search for them in their full glory?

Edited by exasperatus2002, 23 March 2011 - 02:04 PM.

#2 Guest_gzeiger_*

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Posted 24 March 2011 - 12:41 AM

I've been seeing a lot of grass pickerel fry, nesting Elassoma, and downriver some hogchokers and young menhaden. No pictures though. Mostly I've been going out in a lazy manner to get Gambusia for feeders.

#3 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 24 March 2011 - 01:54 AM

With the recent spurt of warm weather we had, until last nights snow....has anyone been out sampling?

I went out last weekend with no luck.

#4 Guest_NVCichlids_*

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Posted 24 March 2011 - 09:35 AM

I was planning on going out yesterday, but then it started to snow, I am not that dedicated as I would stuble, then fall and with my recent knee issues, didn't want to mess around.

Did find a promising location for some banded darters (which is a species I still need to photograph for my collection!)

#5 Guest_dmarkley_*

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Posted 24 March 2011 - 09:36 AM

I've been seeing a lot of grass pickerel fry, nesting Elassoma, and downriver some hogchokers and young menhaden. No pictures though. Mostly I've been going out in a lazy manner to get Gambusia for feeders.

Any chance I could get some of those pickerel fry?

Dean

#6 Guest_Drew_*

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Posted 24 March 2011 - 09:48 AM

I've been seeing a lot of grass pickerel fry, nesting Elassoma, and downriver some hogchokers and young menhaden. No pictures though. Mostly I've been going out in a lazy manner to get Gambusia for feeders.

Wouldn't those be redfin pickerel in SC?

#7 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 24 March 2011 - 11:28 AM

So far, I've only gotten to sample over spring break, but I sampled all week long across multiple drainages in Tennessee and Kentucky. Species I saw:

lampreys:
Lampetra sp. (haven't IDed 'em yet)

minnows:
Campostoma anomalum and/or oligolepis
Chrosomus erythrogaster
Cyprinella spiloptera
Ericymba buccata (I know it's a Notropis now, but it'll always be Ericymba to me)
Luxilus chrysocephalus
Lythrurus fasciolaris
Nocomis effusus
Nocomis micropogon
Notropis leuciodus
Pimephales notatus
Pimephales promelas
Rhinichthys obtusus
Semotilus atromaculatus

suckers:
Catostomus commersonii
Erimyzon oblongus
Hypentelium nigricans

catfishes:
Noturus elegans

killifishes, etc.:
Fundulus catenatus
Fundulus notatus
Gambusia affinis

sculpins:
Cottus carolinae

sunfishes:
Lepomis cyanellus
Lepomis macrochirus
Lepomis megalotis
Micropterus salmoides

darters:
Etheostoma atripinne
Etheostoma barrenense
Etheostoma bellum
Etheostoma blennioides
Etheostoma caeruleum
Etheostoma flabellare
Etheostoma flavum
Etheostoma luteovinctum
Etheostoma nigrum
Etheostoma occidentale
Etheostoma planasaxatile
Etheostoma rafinesquei
Etheostoma sagitta
Etheostoma spectabile complex
Etheostoma squamiceps complex
Etheostoma stigmaeum
Etheostoma tennesseense

#8 Guest_fundulus_*

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Posted 24 March 2011 - 02:19 PM

Nat, no Etheostoma kennicotti or E. rufilineatum on your list? Curious minds want to know.

#9 Guest_farmertodd_*

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Posted 24 March 2011 - 02:30 PM

No stigmaeum "complex"? I'm gonna bet you've looked at least three if you looked a rafenesquei, planasaxatile and tennesseense

#10 Guest_davidjh2_*

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Posted 24 March 2011 - 07:30 PM

I caught a couple ghost shrimp and some baby bluegills last week Friday but only kept one shrimp. Saturday I went and caught the P.clarkii crayfish I posted about and a couple more baby sunfish but I really haven't gone out seriously yet. I have a new inflatable kayak I'm dying to get out on the water so hopefully I'll get a good trip in soon.

#11 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 24 March 2011 - 08:00 PM

I've been seeing a lot of grass pickerel fry, nesting Elassoma, and downriver some hogchokers and young menhaden.

You're so lucky. My dream is to one day see wild Elassoma. ^_^

Edit: Oh, and it's still below freezing where I am, so not collecting just yet.

Edited by EricaWieser, 24 March 2011 - 08:01 PM.

#12 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 24 March 2011 - 11:15 PM

Fundulus- I forgot about the rufies! They're so abundant around here I forget to mention them, though honestly I wasn't in streams big enough for Nothonotus much. I was relying on my colleagues for Catonotus identification; I only know the three big groups, not the species within them, so there may well have been some E. kennicotti without me knowing it.

Todd- only saw E. stigmaeum in the Trammel Fork of the Barren, actually not far from the "liquid sunshine" site I went to with you and Casper et al. back, what, two years ago now? I thought those were still E. stigmaeum proper, but I haven't looked at the distributions of those things in a while.

This was my first encounter with silverjaw minnows and arrow darters. I was pretty excited to see both of them. I was disappointed that I didn't see Etheostoma baileyi; it and E. simoterum s.s. are the only northern snubnoses I haven't seen. The upper Kentucky and upper Cumberland were difficult to sample at the time due to heavy rain, and we ended up cutting the trip short.

#13 Guest_gzeiger_*

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Posted 25 March 2011 - 01:37 AM

Yes, I suppose they are technically redfin pickerel. I wasn't terribly impressed with the argument for separating them is all.

They aren't legal to keep I'm afraid. SC has some downright bizarre collecting restrictions to facilitate lazy enforcement. Game fish of any kind must be injured with a hook prior to being placed in an aquarium. On top of which the only place I catch them regularly is on a military base, and I consider it imprudent to have any game fish howsoever legally caught on my person while in possession of a net.

#14 Guest_Jan_*

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Posted 25 March 2011 - 07:41 PM

Here on Long Island I've got :

bullhead catfish, red fin pickerel, brook stickleback, golden shiner, bluegill, eel - so far.

#15 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 26 March 2011 - 12:39 AM

Here on Long Island I've got :

bullhead catfish, red fin pickerel, brook stickleback, golden shiner, bluegill, eel - so far.

Are the freshwater species native to long island or introduced? And has the separation on an island lead to any diversification that makes them different from the mainland population?

I just realized that as an island in the ocean Long Islands native freshwater fish are sort of a freezeframe snapshot of an ecosystem at a certain point in time when it had a mainland connection. I doubt it would do much to explain my puzzlement over "fortress new england" but may offer a clue or two. (fortress new england my pet theory that the appalacian mountains and champlain seaway created a barrier that kept many of the species from the other side out, I wish their was a way to study this and not just hypothesize).

#16 Guest_Jan_*

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Posted 27 March 2011 - 08:23 PM

Are the freshwater species native to long island or introduced? And has the separation on an island lead to any diversification that makes them different from the mainland population?

I just realized that as an island in the ocean Long Islands native freshwater fish are sort of a freezeframe snapshot of an ecosystem at a certain point in time when it had a mainland connection. I doubt it would do much to explain my puzzlement over "fortress new england" but may offer a clue or two. (fortress new england my pet theory that the appalacian mountains and champlain seaway created a barrier that kept many of the species from the other side out, I wish their was a way to study this and not just hypothesize).

Yes, all these species are native. It is certainly possible that the golden shiners are mixed with those introduced via "bait bucket", but so far as I know, there was a native population. Our other native
shiner is the Bridle Shiner.

I believe the introduced species of fish are the green sunfish, found in a few localized ponds, brown and rainbow trout, walleye, in one location, small mouth bass - also one location. We have less diversity than the mainland, but some interesting species, like the banded sunfish, pirate perch, and swamp darter (which I've yet to see).

The Island was formed about 50 thousand years ago through the process of glaciation, the last of the glaciers ebbed away about 20 thousand years ago. Long Island Sound was initially a large freshwater lake, until the Atlantic eroded through the eastern end. I'm pretty sure that connection to the mainland throughout the formation of the Island was minimal.

I don't know of any studies of fish on Long Island which aim to establish if they have genetic differences from Mainland counterparts. There are studies of some of our reptile and amphibian species along these lines, however.

#17 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 28 March 2011 - 02:54 AM

Interesting, the native species sound alot like the species on the eastern part of new england (away from the hilly terrain), with the exception of the pirate perch. *grumbles at the one fish too lazy to swim accross the lake*. (if the mudminnows were native to their they would be another we didn't have). Curious.

#18 Guest_blakemarkwell_*

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Posted 28 March 2011 - 09:30 AM

All those Ulocentra and E. luteovinctum (in March!) are making me incredibly jealous! Yeah, it looks like you are only missing E. orientale and E. simoterum proper from that complex.

Blake

#19 Guest_NVCichlids_*

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Posted 28 March 2011 - 09:38 AM

Pirate Perch are some of the neatest fish I have seen in wild. I have only seen 2, but they were so much fun to watch with a snorkel!

I am hoping to go back to that area this summer to see if I can spot one (or two) again.

#20 Guest_farmertodd_*

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Posted 28 March 2011 - 11:51 AM

Todd- only saw E. stigmaeum in the Trammel Fork of the Barren I thought those were still E. stigmaeum proper, but I haven't looked at the distributions of those things in a while.

They've only been described in a dissertation, but if you count that, the form would be considered the bluegrass darter. The form published out of that dissertation is the bluemask darter, E. akatulo. There's a mess of others. I'll send you the map I have.

Todd