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2-16-07 Raleigh, NC


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#1 Guest_drewish_*

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Posted 19 February 2007 - 08:42 PM

I made it out with the guys in RAS, Raleigh Aquarium Society for their 23rd annual convention and we hit a couple of spots. The first spot we hit was a cypress swamp pond and we found :

blackbanded sunfish,Enneacanthus chaetodon
bluespotted sunfish, Enneacanthus gloriosus
banded pygmy sunfish, Elassoma zonatum
flier, Centrarchus macropterus
warmouth, Lepomis gulosus
bluegill, Lepomis macrochirus
eastern mosquitofish, Gambusia holbrooki
lined topminnow, Fundulus lineolatus
redfin pickerel, Esox americanus americanus
eastern mudminnow, Umbra pygmae
swamp darter, Etheostoma fusiforme

We also went to a creek and hit a few riffles and pools. There we found :

roanoke darter, Percina roanoka
chainback darter, Percina nevisense
tessellated darter, Etheostoma olmstedi
spottail shiner, Notropis hudsonius
white shiner, Luxilus albeolus ?
redbreast sunfish, Lepomis auritus

#2 Guest_NateTessler13_*

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Posted 20 February 2007 - 06:05 PM

Was the river a relatively large river, because I have only seen Spottail Shiner in large rivers in Ohio and Illinois. It's an interesting combination of fish you guys have out there...seems like quite a few sunfish species.

#3 Guest_drewish_*

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Posted 20 February 2007 - 10:17 PM

We were upstream a couple of miles from the Neuse River where we got the spottail. It was hard getting shiners that day. The water was a little bit high and made seining a bit difficult.

#4 Guest_gerald_*

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Posted 23 February 2007 - 10:22 AM

Friday February 16 was clear and cold when he headed south from Raleigh toward Rhodes Pond at US-301 in NE Cumberland County, a few miles from Fayetteville NC. Andrew G from VA, Phil K and Jim G from MI, Scott D from Chicago, Chuck D from the NJ part of FL, and seven of our usual Raleigh Aquar Soc creek-stompin suspects caravanned to Site 1. Rhodes Pond is an old millpond full of bald cypress on the Black River 40 miles south of Raleigh, in the Cape Fear River basin. No ice on the water despite temps around 20F the past few nights, but the shoreline mud was still frozen in shady spots behind trees. We seined and dipnetted the shallow southwest corner of the pond & got most of our target species: bluespotted sunfish (6), blackbanded sunfish (~20) banded pymy sunfish (~15), swamp darter (4), mudminnow (1), lined killie (9), mosquitofish (~50), bluegill, warmouth, redfin pickerel, grass shrimp, and lotsa cool bugs including water scorpion. I had expected more mudminnows, and we struck out on swampfish, pirate perch, mud sunfish, and flier that we were hoping to see. Nice diversity of submersed plants here: Nitella, Potamogeton, Myriophyllum, Utricularia, Eleocharis, Ludwigia, Elodea, & Callitriche among others.

Next we headed back to Raleigh to seine in Walnut Creek at Sunnybrook Road, a tributary of the Neuse River in Wake County. Accessible riffle habitat was limited to a small patch below the bridge and the channel rather scoured and silty from urban runoff, but we did OK: roanoke darter (~10), chainback darter (3), tesselated darter (~20), white shiner (2), spottail shiner (1), redbreast sunfish (4), and two-lined salamander (3). Previous collections in warmer weather here yielded more minnow species (pinewoods, swallowtail, satinfin, & comely shiners; bluehead & creek chubs) and margined madtom, but they’d probably moved elsewhere into deeper slower pools we couldn’t get to.

Back at the Raleigh Aquar Soc convention site we had four 10 gal tanks to display some of our catch for the weekend. A few folks who couldn’t stay for the weekend took fish directly home. Despite going from 30’s to 70’s F in about four hours, all fish looked fine and were eating well when we bagged them up Sunday for folks to take home. (All except a few tiny mosquitofish who were now inside a couple tiny pickerels). The banded pygmies were looking ready to spawn, and last year we had some that DID spawn in the display tanks. We used kosher salt in the collecting buckets (~1 teasp/gal) and pre-cycled filters I’d brought from home to help ease stress and maintain water quality in the display tanks. Drewish has several pix of these fish posted in the Photos forum. Y’all come back in June for the BIG event.

Gerald



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