Hey Everyone,
Lately i have been thinking about starting up my own 55 gallon native fish tank. I have decided to do so but will wait until march or april when it warms up a bit. Anyway,I have a few questions. In my radical search for a madtom last fall, I stupidly disregarded anything that went into my net that wasn't a madtom, including beautiful baby redbreast sunfish, baby green sunfish, and tons of tessellated darters. Anyway, now that i am going to make a tank out of this, i also decided i needed a dip net. Last year i used an old butterfly net....which did work pretty nicely. I also have a brand new 4 by 4 seine that is really great, unfortunately i go by myself most of the time so i cant use that alone. I was thinking of getting jonahs perfect dip net. How does this work? Do i just kick over rocks and thrust the net under? With the butterfly net i just swept it along banks and kicked rocks over and swept under. that seemed to work.
Now for the fish. I was consistently getting tons of baby redbreast sunfish that were really beautiful last fall. About an inch long. Will i be able to get them again in the same spots come spring? Or will they be grown more? Also, i am thinking of darters, madtoms, chub and minnows, and sunfish species for my tank. Will the madtom and darters never be visible because theyre always under rocks?
One last question: I thought of a great spot to do some netting. On my favorite bass lake, there is a spot that i always used to see a bunch of small fish and fry at. Its a weedy flat with matts and pads and rocks and soft bottom. It is perfect. Anyway does this seem like a good spot to find my prize tadpole madtom? I know for a fact this spot will yield all of my panfish species and possibly some of the minnow species.
Let me know what you guys think of my plan and if you have any advice don't hesitate to say so!
Thanks!

There is a minimum catch size of seven inches for 'sunfish' in Pennsylvania. Source: http://fishinpa.com/panfish.html
The exact words are ""Sunfish" includes bluegills, pumpkinseeds and redear sunfish."
I guess make sure you can tell the difference between redear and redbreast sunfish. There's an image on that website I linked to above that shows which one they're referring to.

Edited by EricaWieser, 19 January 2012 - 08:14 PM.

There is a minimum catch size of seven inches for 'sunfish' in Pennsylvania. Source: http://fishinpa.com/panfish.html
The exact words are ""Sunfish" includes bluegills, pumpkinseeds and redear sunfish."
I guess make sure you can tell the difference between redear and redbreast sunfish. There's an image on that website I linked to above that shows which one they're referring to.

Where will you be collecting? The link above lists the panfish enhancement areas where they're trying to create a trophy panfish fishing area. The rest of the state doesnt have a minimum size for panfish.

Since your from Philly Im assuming you'll be sampling the delaware and surrounding areas. Heres the link for your area.
My link

for the delaware itself see-

My link

Edited by exasperatus2002, 20 January 2012 - 09:10 AM.

You may need a different approach for the sunfish. It appears that game fish in PA can't be taken with a net or seine.(see statement "e") http://www.pacode.co...er63/s63.6.html

It also looks like redbreast sunfish are considered a game fish. http://fishandboat.c...ish_species.htm

If you're into it, a light weight fly rod can be a fun way to catch small Lepomis. It may not be as productive, but it is fun. While using the fly rod for sunfish, I like to set a minnow trap for the rest of the possibilities. I often alternate between the fly rod and dip net while I have the trap set. Unfortunately, it may be hard to explain to the DNR officer that you really did catch the sunfish with a fly rod while you've got a dip net, seine, or minnow trap with you. I've heard of others having this trouble, but I personally haven't.

I've been thinking about getting a "perfect dip net" too. The dip net I've got is a similar shape and works well, but is actually meant as a landing net for crappie so it doesn't withstand the scraping along the bottom very well. When it wears out(probably within the year) I'll most likely be ordering one of these from Jonah's.

Happy collecting.

Steve.

Edited by steve, 20 January 2012 - 10:27 AM.

I must say I have 6 total dipnets and got the perfect dip net last year. The perfect dip net is soooo much better than any others I have. It can be jamed into the rubble/rocky substrait without being damaged and can easily pull in a net full of stones, weeds and driftwood without issues. The net itself seems very durable and I have no issues with how rough I am with it. I do recommend doing the cleaning process recommended after each use. I had an issue (which was fixed with cleaning.. LOL) when I went from one place. drove 3 hours and then used it in another (went from my parents pond to my friends pond) and some sand had gotten into it. It was cleaned out and is 100% fine.

I had a thread on here I will try to find that shows where I have found hundreds of tadpole madtoms the past two years. I will try to find it. (it shows pictures.)

I had a thread on here I will try to find that shows where I have found hundreds of tadpole madtoms the past two years. I will try to find it. (it shows pictures.)

Looks like I removed those pictures to have more space. i will try to find them this weekend for you.

Thanks a bunch everyone. I actually am a fly fisherman, I have a two weight fly rod brand new I got this fall I have been excited to use for gills. I should change my status, I'm not from Philly I'm from bucks county. I wanted to be broad, I figures people would recognize that better. Anyway I'll have to catch them on the fly and I will take the proper sized ones too. If you can find those madtom spot pictures that would be great. Thanks again everyone.