Hi! I just joined after lurking for a while and posting as a guest. I'm John, and I've been keeping fish including natives for about 40 years now, but the native bug has really bitten me hard in the last couple of years. Currently I'm maintaining a 40 breeder with a 5" Pickerel, (most likely a Redfin x Grass hybrid given it's Gulf Coast origin) an adult female Orangespot sunfish, a 3" Bluegill, a 2" Green Sunfish and a 2" unidentified Sunfish I recently collected on an outing with Gerald after his presentation at Bucks County Aquarium Society. We guessed it was a Bluegill x Green hybrid, but at this point who cares, it's a beautiful fish !I'm currently working on a 180 that currently holds a small White Sucker and a few large Longnose Dace for a more suitable permanent home for these guys. I also am maintaining a 5 gal with a group of Gulf Coast Pygmies,and a 65 with a group of Tesselated Darters. Probably my favorite is a little 1" Mud Sunfish we caught on the second day out with Gerald that I have in a one gallon bowl. I can hardly wait to get him big enough to go into the 180! I really look forward to participating here!

Hey John - It was great fun hanging out with you, Mark, Anna, Bob, Ray and the other BCAS and Jersey gang last weekend -- glad to see you here on the forum. Despite the heat my 6 obesus and 1 chaeto from NJ made it home just fine in 2 small drink bottles, and within 5 days were enthusiastically begging for worms just like tank-raised fish. The TSA agents were more interested in my bottle of Tecnu (poison ivy cleaner) than in the fish. (TSA's 3 oz liquid rule is waived for live fish, but I was warned that not all TSA agents will let them through). Good luck with the new fish and I hope you guys can get more BCAS folks out to enjoy the local natives.

Mark Denaro posted our PA species list (Delaware River tribs, July 6) here:
http://forum.nanfa.o..._20#entry100681

My records of our NJ Pine Barrens collections (July 7) are here:
http://forum.nanfa.o..._20#entry100783

Edited by gerald, 15 July 2012 - 04:10 PM.

Hey Gerald, it sure was fun! Picking and eating those Huckleberries while wading in Lake Absegami was priceless! Glad to hear about the fish, everything I kept is doing great as well, with the exception of a couple of Blacknose Dace that jumped out on me and ended up as jerky! I just saw a Sculpin today poking around in a creek in the park where I walk my dog, so I know I'll be going back there soon! Btw didn't someone come up with Blueback Herring at the Mullica River site?

One of the NJ guys said we caught a netfull of baby herring, but what I saw in that net all looked like little golden shiners. So I didn't include herring on my list, but they oughta be there, according to the sign at the Batsto Dam fish ladder. And by the way there's no dam on Mullica River downstream of that site despite my insistence during lunch that there must be a dam. The guy who saw herring was right about there NOT being a dam, so maybe I'm wrong about the herring vs shiners too. The shoreline vegetation and boat docks looked like a river where water elevation barely fluctuates (in NC that's usually a dammed river), but I followed it downstream to Great Bay on Google Earth and there's no dam. Guess I'm out of my league in NJ -- wasn't expecting such a big river channel with so small a watershed area.

Hey Gerald, it sure was fun! Picking and eating those Huckleberries while wading in Lake Absegami was priceless! Glad to hear about the fish, everything I kept is doing great as well, with the exception of a couple of Blacknose Dace that jumped out on me and ended up as jerky! I just saw a Sculpin today poking around in a creek in the park where I walk my dog, so I know I'll be going back there soon! Btw didn't someone come up with Blueback Herring at the Mullica River site?