So I had 2 hours to spare on sunday and took a trip down to the mukwanago river. I went looking to see what crayfish are there and see if I can find some of my beloved sunfish species. My camera didn't work that great that day (and boy am I pushing for a new camera that can take pictures underwater!!)

Anyways, the species caught were:
Rusty Crayfish
Stonecats
Pumpkinseeds
Black Crappie
Perch
Logperch
Longear Sunfish
Bluegill
Rockbass
Warmouth
Largemouth bass
smallmouth bass
rainbow darters
fantail darters
blackstriped topminnows
starhead topminnows
yellow bullhead
stone cats
grass pickerel (if I remember the key to ID'ing them again..)
snapping turtles (yes with my dip net lol..)

Here are a few pictures of the trip

Location upstream


and down stream


Rockbass


Starhead topminnow


Pickerel


Yellow bullhead


Longear Sunfish

I like the pictures and man what a nice variety of fish you caught. I'm very jealous lol.

Rusty Crayfish





Long ears again

We need to go collecting sometime! It sucks that Longears are endangered in Wisconsin and that you can't collect sunfish because those fish look amazing. Same with the Starhead Topminnows! I've worked with the at a local eco-center, but it's just not the same. Also, can you legally collect pickerel in Wisconsin? I really want one for my tanks at home!

Edited by Yeahson421, 11 October 2011 - 09:01 PM.

Thanks guys for the comments, I love this river and spent an hour there with my dad once just taking junk out of it (cans bottles, old tires.. etc) as i didn't want things to polute it.

The pickerel cannot be kept in WI. Any game fish (panfish included) cannot be taken away from their water alive. Only Minnows and catfish mainly. It really confuses me reading soem of the laws as they say fish from the "perch" family can be kept, so would that mean I can keep perch that I collect.. I don't know, I just let them all be happy back in the river.

And yea, the long ears are AWESOME!! I was questioning my ID at first, as their mouths were bigger than I was expecting and I couldn't confirm with my eye that the ear spot was at a slight raise, but then I caught a longear and greenie together and BOY was there a difference!

I was a bit disappointed that I have YET to find any orangespotted sunfish there. They are supposed to be common, but I just want to see one in person before I order from zimmerman (plus I want to make sure my tank is set up for the correct biotope/eco system.)

I would love to hook up next spring for collecting. my wife and I just bought our first house so time is going to be limited the rest of this year with making sure everything is how we want it. I would love to go sculpin collecting/sampling/photographing or blue rusty crayfish which are located in the la cross area, so that might be an easy trip for you?

Yeah, that'd be great! I'm still working on finding some good spots, but I think I may have found one for Orangespotted, so I may be able to show you. It's a spillway that I believe heads into the Root River. Sadly, there isn't a lot of public access around here, but I have access to a family friend's beach house that has some of the best beachfront on the Mississippi! I actually just caught a rusty there a few days ago. In all honesty, if you want Crayfish the best time I've witnessed is from July-August. We push our pontoon out and underneath it we find10-20 crays every time!

Nice report, and some good pictures too. What a great variety for just 2 hours. How much area did you cover to get that much variety? Love those little longears. For the past 3 weeks or so, I've been seeing what appears to be longears about the size of my finger nail on my little finger. Are the crays going to your cray tank? Looks like one of them has some blue or green on the claws. Pretty cool looking. Thanks for posting.

Steve.

Nice report, and some good pictures too. What a great variety for just 2 hours. How much area did you cover to get that much variety? Love those little longears. For the past 3 weeks or so, I've been seeing what appears to be longears about the size of my finger nail on my little finger. Are the crays going to your cray tank? Looks like one of them has some blue or green on the claws. Pretty cool looking. Thanks for posting.

Steve.

What is seen in the pictures as far as where I was was where they were all caught, so maybe a 1/4 mile, an 1/8th mile more likely.

And the crays are not going into my tank. I am set on finding prairie/devil crayfish for my tank. I just need to get to those locals to find them.

And to respond to the variety, there are still 10 or so more species in the area (bowfin, fathead, spotfin, tailspot, emerald, golden, white crappie, lake chubsucker, musky, and orangespotts ) that I didn't get to see. I hope to find all fish from that stream eventually!