I did a couple little collecting trips, and one fishing trip, all of which I will throw together into one report.

The fishing trip came first but I put it last as this is not a fishing forum.

My first trip was to manchester. I originally didn't go to dip net, but I had my net with me so I decided to try and scavenge the catch-M-all trip reports location for marginated madtom below the dam at Amoskeag fishways.

Manchester seems like an odd place to fish, After all it is the tenth largest city in New England, the largest in Northern New England, and the largest in New Hampshire. But Manchester has a history of fishing.

The dam at Amoskeag fishways was built at Amoskeag falls where salmon, shad, herring, sturgeon, eels, and lamprey were fished by both the original native population and later colonists. In fact remember when I said on the Lamprey River that colonists called the meat of the sea lamprey Derryfield Beef? Well Derryfield was the old name for Manchester. It was this place that gave it its name.

Ok, this is a long introduction for a relatively low fish based report. My first stop was amoskeag fishway, sadly I arrived about a half hour after closing. The sign is still impressive.



Sadly the building was closed so I couldn't go inside. But I saw a fish tank through the main doors windows and photographed it. The sign implies it has salmon in it. yes it does feel a bit wrong photographing an aquarium through the front door window on a closed building.



I found a portage trail back where I parked and used it to access the river. Upstream of the dam has a dirt bottom and occasional weed beds. The shore line had overhanging branches and tiny undercuts where the river cut under tree roots. At fist I had no luck running my net through weeds and under branches and roots. Finally I shoved my net under a root, then stomped on the roots collapsing them and drove a banded sunfish into my net.



I have yet to catch more than one banded at a site, but now I am catching them when not looking for them.

I then tried downstream from the falls. I missed the portage trail and slid down a steep bank with hazardous rocks, branches, and poison ivy on it. Only to arrive right by the trail. their were scattered rocks in the dirt and it got rockier closer to the dam. Despite the Catch-M-All crew getting a madtom here and seeing walleye fisherman, and their being a fishway here, the banded was the only fish I saw. This was weird and unnerving as usually i see more fish than I catch.

Also strange was a lack of tesselated darters as this habitat was perfect for them. (mind you they are not native to this drainage, but I have read they have been introduced to it, at least in some tributaries).

My other sampling trip was the pond by Monadnock Marketplace. This pond used to be surrounded by trees but they cleared them for a trail to a new foot bridge crossing the highway. I always wondered if this pond had fish (it likely did if it was deep enough to not freeze to the bottom, after all even remote ponds far in the woods have introduced species),



Here i caught alot of shiners and sunnies. One sunny was big enough to see spots between the bands revealing it as a juvenile pumpkinseed, Given the habitat the shiners were likely golens, but only one was large enough to have a diamond shape.







I got more sunnies than shiners but the shiner pics came out better. It was odd how the smallest juveniles of both are transparent.

The last trip was my first, a fishing trip. But as this is not a fishing forum I didn't want to make it the main focus of the article. I started at the Connecticut River where I got one pumpkinseed and two bluegill.



Oddly enough this bored me (usually catching any fish at all makes fishing good). So I traveled from Hinsdale to Keene so I could go grocery shopping (at Price Chopper, in the same marketplace the pond was though on the opposite side), then realized that beside the store was a brook. Likely ash brook as it was on ash brook road.



Having my pole on me I cast out. I caught alot of small to medium fallfish, they were fun. They fought well and often jumped on hookset. The tiniest ones tended to spit out the bait as they jumped.

I did a few more trips lately, not all of which i took photos on. I decided to add them to get all my pics out of the way before the trip (not sure if I will read up on backscatter and try photography again this weekend or not).

It all started with a minor die off, losing most of my darters and one dace. Why? well it was a few weeks ago and i was neglecting water changes due to weekend overtime at the time so I suspect a mix of nitrates and heat. As always I am the biggest enemy of my fish *sigh* Sadly I lost my big tessie (the one twice as big as any other wild darter I seen when I caught it a couple years ago, and after not seeing any others that size it ended up being the fish that made me make a rule to throw back unusually large specimens of small fish). So I did a big water change on all my tanks and went to a spot on the Ashuelot where I saw darters in spring. This spot was unusual as it was one of the few spots I seen tessies in riffles.

Oddly enough their were no darters to be found here, which I found odd as I always heard darters never move much, I found plenty of long nose dace, yellow bullhead, and one redbreast sunfish. I am starting to suspect that yellow bullheads are better adapted to current than brown bullheads as they seem to outnumber them in rivers.

My next trip was in martin brook in the woods behind my house, an area I knew had slimy sculpin and brook trout. I didn't see any trout (but heard a splash and saw a trail of stirred up sediment implying something swam off fast). But found plenty of sculpin.







and a frog



my next trip was Ashuelot River Park in Keene and the river mentioned in its name. the muddy shallows now had rocks from added rip rap, due to this the perpetual school of fry that lasts all summer is gone. Instead it had a few darters and a minnow or two dating around the rocks. I didn't catch a minnow but got three tesselate darters, two of which I kept. It seems the answer to how riprap effects fish is this. "It is a poor place for most minnows, but darters LOVE it."

My last trip was a photo trip to the Connecticut. Most photos did not come out due to back scatter. I saw lots of small smallmouth and shiners, and one big smallmouth who swam off before i could take its picture.

This is the best photo from the trip



though you native plant fans may like this



their was also a dead carp in the river

Cool plants. I've seen those before, but I don't know what they are. Do you know?

Cool plants. I've seen those before, but I don't know what they are. Do you know?

The long grasslike ones I think are a kind of valisaris tape grass, as for the broader leaves and spiraling stems I have no clue,

The sculpins are very neat. Have you tried keeping them? Do they have special requirments such as temperature?
Thanks,
J.

I think the slimy needs a chiller to keep if i remember right, not sure on other sculpin species. I kept a mottled (I think) from virgina for about a year before it died and it was cool. it changed color near instantly. It could have a white head, slip under a rock then have a black head when it looks out a couple seconds later.

Edited by FirstChAoS, 10 September 2012 - 07:20 AM.

The sculpins are kool fish but like it cold. I had a pair that did well until a heat wave then lost them when the temps hit 80* for a couple days. I even tried rotating ice packs.

I've kept some mottled sculpins before, and I have 4 that I caught last spring for a display aquarium. They decided they didn't want them, so they are in a 5 gallon on my desk. It has been a hot summer here, and I expected trouble when the water got above 75, but no problems. Fantastic little fish. They don't require a chiller, but they like an airstone. I've also tried slimy sculpins, but they really don't like it over 60, and quickly perish in warmer water.