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Ohio 2012 Convention Recap...

Started by Guest_andyavram_* , Sep 24 2012 08:15 PM

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19 replies to this topic

#1 Guest_andyavram_*

Guests

Posted 24 September 2012 - 08:15 PM

For Casper who keeps wanting more in the other thread! Sorry, I didn't take pictures though.

I figured I would start a new thread and people can add their convention recaps here, as things I think are getting lost in the other thread.

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Sheepishly, I will admit to being an on-again-off-again NANFA member over the years, but when I heard it was going to be in Ohio I made sure my membership was paid up and planned on attending. I am glad I did. It was a great conference and I was able to meet some great people, and get out in the water with some friends. I will hash it out day by day.

Day 1. Electrofishing on the Muskingum River. Awesome! Oddly, I have never until that day been able to witness electrofishing. It was everything I dreamed it could be and more. They got up a ton of fish species, including many I have never seen before. Representatives were taken back to the lodge to live the next couple of days in a large display tank (1/2 a semi-truck trailor, on wheels) outside the lodge. Some of the species included Longnose Gar, Mooneye (lifer), Gizzard Shad, Smallmouth Buffalo, Silver Redhorse (lifer), River Redhorse (lifer), Blue Sucker (lifer, and best fish of the trip), Channel Catfish, Flathead Catfish (lifer), Spotted Bass and more. (Yes, I keep a fish life list.) Since I have helped Brian Zimmerman in the past with his small, benthic fishes in large river trawling I opted out of it so others could get a chance. I am sure that went well too. I also did some seining with a new friend Kristina and a guy named Scott, who for some reason I unfortunately never got to hang out with again at the conference. We seined up a few Slenderhead Darters (lifer) and many Orangespot Sunfish, which was high on everyone’s collecting list.

Day 2. Sessions. It was nice to pack the sessions into one day so the rest of the conference we could focus on being in the water. And the higher powers blessed us with chilly outside temperatures, so we didn’t feel like we were missing out that day either! Love it when things work out that way. Some of my favorite sessions were the freshwater mussels, crayfish and all the awesome work the Tennessee Aquarium (I am supposed to go there) is doing. Banquet was great and auction would have been better had I been smarter and brought cash down. Many, many, many “Fishes of…(insert state)” books.

Day 3. Canoe Trip. A little slow getting started, but my group of new found friends (and cabin mates), Nick Zarlinga, and his wife Linda, Mike, Jackie and Kristina hung out on the water to catch a number of great fish. My favorite was the Bowfin I nearly barehanded. A great day to be on the water, and I must give props to the Ohio Scenic Rivers Program crew for being patient and not rushing us when we got back 1-2 hours late! In fact the head of the Program was out of the canoe seining as much as we were. I think the only life fish I saw that day was the Mountain Madtom.

Day 4. Field trips and home. The group of people I ended up hanging out with (most of whom are professional peers of mine in NE Ohio, so this convention worked on a personal and professional level for me.) took same field trip, along with long-time NANFAnian Jeff Riebe. It was also good to catch up with Todd Crail, who joined us for a while. We sampled big rivers to small streams and saw another suite of great fish and life fish. Highlight species were: Streamside Chub, Bullhead Minnow (lifer), Mimic Shiner (weak lifer), Common Shiner (super-weak lifer), Dusky Darter (lifer), Bluebreast Darters, TONS of Brindled Madtoms and then at the dace stream literally saw hundreds of Redside, Southern Redbelly and Blacknose Daces, including hybrids between the two “red” species. WOW! This field trip went longer than planned, but we all wanted it to go longer. Luckily, our leader, Zimmerman, invited us over to see his fish tanks. All I can say it AMAZING! His display tanks are better than many professional zoos and aquariums. His breeding ponds for his fish business are done well and his holding tanks help fish that left us all drooling.

My first NANFA convention will prove to not be my last.

Andy

Edited by andyavram, 24 September 2012 - 08:21 PM.

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#2 Guest_IsaacSzabo_*

Guests

Posted 25 September 2012 - 01:21 PM

Very interesting. Like Casper, I have been eager to read some more detailed accounts. Thanks for taking the time to write this. Sounds like it was a great convention.

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#3 Guest_Casper_*

Guests

Posted 25 September 2012 - 06:33 PM

Thanks Andy...
Wow... if someone was to take the iniative and write a full account of the convention for American Currents they would have a good start pulling from experiences and quotes here.
For those of us who could not attend it is a pleasure to experience it, at least to some degree through the attendees who take the time to share a bit.
Thank you.

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#4 Michael Wolfe

Board of Directors

North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 26 September 2012 - 10:43 PM

A pictorial summary, I had no phototank, so took more pics of people than normal, the names have been omitted to protect the guilty.

This is the cabin I shared with NANFAns from Iowa, Ohio, and Georgia.
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Electrofishing Boat
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Trawl Boat and more NANFAns
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My Day 1 seining partners Ohio, New York, Minnesoooooota and me
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The big aquarium
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Fridays talks
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Banquet at sunset
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Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

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#5 Michael Wolfe

Board of Directors

North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 26 September 2012 - 10:45 PM

Saturday Darter Shuffle: Minnesota, Ohio, Georgia, Alabama
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Talkin about fish under a tree
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Another Saturday Crew: Ohio, Ohio, Kentucky, Iowa
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Chasing crayfish... this one got away
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Ohio River Lock and Dam and Mr. New Hampshire
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Sunday Seining Crew: Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Ohio
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We always talk about fish diversity, but we had a pretty good diversity of NANFAns as well.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

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#6 Guest_Casper_*

Guests

Posted 27 September 2012 - 09:40 AM

Thanks Michael... those are some fun pictures. I see a lot of happy fishy folks. The perched cabin looks nice and the banquet room sunset is inviting. A neat diversity of images with the dam & wide eyed wonder netter, creekers and kick seine crews, a AL muck stuck collector, mobile viewing tank... jumbo sized, Todd and his megaphone viewer, and near perfect dipnets and containers of all sorts. A bit of clear water, perhaps a potential immersed view upstream of the darter shuffelers? Those shock and trawl boats are smaller than i imagined, not for the unbalanced. Where are the flipped canoe photos?

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#7 Guest_steve_*

Guests

Posted 28 September 2012 - 10:23 AM

The water in the last picture was actually quite clear until we got involved.(If this is the one I'm thinking of) A beautiful little stream with some huge redside dace. I thought the ones that I,ve watched grow in my 75gal. were big, but the two redises I brought home actually outsize them a little. I swore I didn't have room for any more fish and that I would have enough self control to keep myself from bringing any more home. That was until I saw those large redsides(thanks for sharing Ed) and this only after a juvenile northern hog sucker stole my heart(thanks for the encouragement Micheal). All three fish are doing fine. The redsides immediately took their place in the current of the tank alongside the others and the little hogsucker is spending a lot of time in the section of the tank where I overfeed. This seems like a good sign to me. Thanks again to everyone. What a great time.

Edited by steve, 28 September 2012 - 10:38 AM.

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#8 Guest_fritz_*

Guests

Posted 28 September 2012 - 11:09 AM

Casper
The non-float motorcade on Saturday did end up for dinner at Bill's Famous BBQ outside of Zanesville. Most got the nightly special of ribs but I opted for the chopped BBQ. Everyone appeared to enjoy the ribs; wish I could have said the same about the BBQ. Sigh.

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#9 Guest_Casper_*

Guests

Posted 28 September 2012 - 11:56 AM

Overfeeding those Hogsuckers with a sandy, fine gravel substrate is probably your best chance. Tough fish to keep in aquariums, i never had longterm success. I have a couple in the cement pond that have lived and grown for several years but the habitat is greatly varied throughout... gravel, runs, rocks, shag carpet full of all kinds of micro critters, silt, and plants aplenty.

Why is a Redside Dace a Dace when it looks more like a Shiner? When i hear Dace i think of the gentle looking faces / snouts of SRBD, MRBD or Blacknose and Longnose Dace. The mouth on a Redside Dace appears so "agressive".
I guess my question is "What makes a Dace a Dace?"

BBQ... sometimes you win, sometimes you lose... and it don't matter what state your in!

The tinyest streams can often provide snorkeling... you just have to work your way up to a pool big enough to lie in. Some of my best snorkels have been in such, where you could hardly move but all the fish had gathered.

Thanks for the OHIO accounts. Please keep 'em coming all you attendees.

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#10 Guest_andyavram_*

Guests

Posted 01 October 2012 - 02:09 PM

Nice to see some pictures posted, and I even made it in 3 or 4 of them!

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#11 Michael Wolfe

Board of Directors

North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 01 October 2012 - 09:33 PM

Some may remember that I bought the candy "fish"-eyes at the auction... and I collected some natural "fish"-eyes on one of the collecting trips... decided to share some of each with our absent NANFA fellow... he was appreciative...

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Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

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#12 Guest_Casper_*

Guests

Posted 02 October 2012 - 12:49 PM

That is as close as i got to the BuckEye / FishEye state in 2012.
I could eat a box of the peanut butter buckeyes.

I never know what the postman will show up with these days.

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#13 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

Guests

Posted 05 October 2012 - 12:33 PM

can I take a copy of that pic of me at the dam for my own use?

I guess I will make a trip report. Here is part one, the lake.

It all started on a day that was both happy and miserable. Happy as it was warm and sunny, miserable as I was sick and nearly got into an accident. I arrived at salt fork one day early to be rested and not miss anything.

The first observation is their were lot of deer everywhere and very tame. I'd say it was like a Derrassic Park their but that would be wrong, Deerassic Park was down the street from the park. (yes their IS a place called Deerassic Park on Cadiz road, I wish I got a picture of it but when I first passed it I had no camera on me, and when I looked for it on leaving I didn't find it so either got the address wrong or my GPS messed up on me).

I may as well post a pic of a buck (who barely has any antlers) and a doe before getting to the fish pics.

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The first day I made a mistake. This was my first NANFA convention and my third convention of any kind (the other two being a crappy local RPG convention and a worse local comic con, nothing like the cool national conventions of the kind I expected). I assumed I knew what to expect from other cons. At opening time you join the line waiting in front of the door. have your registration checked, get a schedule of events, and enter the building. I thought from what I remembered reading in American Currents check in and the trip was at three but the trip was noon and their was no event check in. From this I learned the hard way to check the NANFA homepage as well as the forums.

With everyone gone I decided to check the lake out.

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Their were alot of sunfish around the docks and got a few pictures of them. I cast in a line and found them to be bluegill.

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I wasn't happy with hook and line and decided to jump in the water and persue fish with a net. Seems I wasn't the only one in the water chasing fish.

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I swear that guy shows up everyplace I fish at.

before i entered the water I did see two big carp.

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at one location their was a pile of snail shells in the water

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On entering the water I seen minnow like fish too fast to catch, and after failing a bit decided to kick net some rocks where I got a bluegill and a green sunfish. This is my first green.

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When I returned the tank was being set up and fish were being added.

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#14 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

Guests

Posted 05 October 2012 - 12:45 PM

On the way back I noticed how unusually large the bumblebees were here. At first Ia ssumed geographical variation but then on the trail by the lodge i seen two together, one atop the other in the walkway. I was in the presence of ROYALTY! They flew off before I could take the pictures, it figures royals would flee their paparazzi.

The tank was large and impressive and on wheels like a trailer. When I arrived I saw them trying to revive a massive flathead cat. It took him a long time to recover but he did,

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The blue sucker was loved by the crowd

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The freshwater drum was very impressive. didn't know they got so big. The only time I saw one outside a field guide before this was on a fishing show when they got a small one. I sort of assumed they were a small species, boy was I wrong,

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I was also very impressed by the buffalo

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But my personal favorite was the redhorse. Looking like a giant white sucker with a sad and mopey look to its face.

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I got to go to work soon, hopefully I can get to day two and beyond later.

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#15 Guest_Skipjack_*

Guests

Posted 05 October 2012 - 02:45 PM

Josh, the large bumblebees here are actually carpenter bees. They like to bore into the eaves of houses.

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#16 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

Guests

Posted 06 October 2012 - 08:38 PM

Josh, the large bumblebees here are actually carpenter bees. They like to bore into the eaves of houses.

First the ants, now the bees, hymenoptera make terrible carpenters.

The next day had some fun talks. I fondly remember the hillarious mussel talk, the sturgeon restoration talk, and the talk on unique fish variants from Minnesota. I missed a few (including the crayfish talk I also heard was great) when I went to lay down in a pause between chats and fell asleep, but I caught most of them.

The next day we went sampling at three spots. My first spot was the favorite of them. I arrived, seen people disappearing and went to the river, hopped in, and soon netted one of my favorite sunfish, a rock bass. I then realized no one else was their and hopped out of the water and went to the nice riffle the rest were at. This was my best sampling spot, full of madtoms, minnows, and darters of every type. (well... not EVERY type). It was one of the easiest kicknetting experiences I ever had, the species diversity meant fish were everywhere.

I wish I took more pics from the sampling parts of the trip, but as the groups were far more mobile than usual instead of my usual tactic of "putting down my camera and bucket, heading downstream until I got a fish, then heading back and taking a photo, then moving downstream with a bucket" it was "kick and catch lots of fish until I find one I wanted". Plus excitement overcame the urge to take pictures. Too bad as the varigate darters had awesome color here.

One lesson I learned here is if you fall behind a mobile seining crew, do not try and catch up, you'd never reach them.

The next stop was a smaller, colder rocky stream with more fish. I saw a mink here but my camera was on the opposite shore so no picture. Alot more minnows here and some nice darters I got pics of.

A bluebreast and rainbow darter

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a female bluebreast

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A varigate, nowhere near as colorful as in the first spot.

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our next stop was a timy little coldwater stream, the kind that in my own state would have sculpin and trout, In Ohio they had sculpin, but no trout.

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Their were also redside dace, creek chubs, and darters here.

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I caught a pickerel frog here too, it leaped into the water and I put my net in front of it, it swam right into it.

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The last spot was difficult to reach. The first location was off limits and posted no tresspassing, so we found another access point. Instead of searching for a safe spot to enter the water, we chose the first spot, a steep slope with stone slabs and thorn bushes that was trecherous to travel on.

In here we got alot of species. madtoms, minnows, and darters. Apparently sand darters (but I didn't see them), It was here where Mike taught me how to identify the local darter species. Mostly directly (though I learned to ID the fantail indirectly when I misheard him telling someone else the ID and thought he said bandtail, sure enough fantails have banded tails).

Mike Wolfe and Mark Kibbie were awesome to fish with.

Afterwards was the auction. I had three things I wanted. A book with info on fish from the northeast. A book on darters. And a book on keeping US natives. I got the first two. It was an intense bidding war to get a Freshwater Fish of New York.

All the items I donated for the auction (Fluval Plant Tank, Catfish Mailbox, Bluegill Pillow, Freshwater Fishes of NH) were bought. I wonder what the plant tank will be used for.

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#17 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

Guests

Posted 06 October 2012 - 08:59 PM

The last day had four stops. First was the Ohio River downstream of a massive dam. Here I seen alot of darters, a few shiners, and some shad. An orange filthy stream flowing into the river here also had a surprising amount of fish in it.

This longear could be from here, not sure now

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The next stop was a bridged stream with rainbow darters, mottled sculpins, and lots of minnows.

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I think this striped shiner was from their

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The nest stop was a flowing river of minnows with a scattering of water in it. No I didn't have that backwards. Minnows were everywhere. Western Blacknose Dace (alot of debate here of east vs west and whether east was just highly variable, but looking it up after a strong orange lateral stripe and the pointy face (which is an illusion from the higher back) makes them west). were everywhere as were longnose dace, eastern hog sucker, rainbow darter, white sucker, and stonerollers. I came in useful with tips from experience such as "faster current is better for longnose dace" and "big longnose lurk under rocks at the top of falls". Mike found some useful info too on how longnose sit on their winglike fins is useful for ID. (I noticed that trait before but only thought of it as a nuisance for photography as it meant i kept having to push them on their sides for good pics, I never thought it could be an identification trait).

I am fairly sure these pics came from this spot.

Northern hog sucker

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rainbow darter

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The last spot was at the Ohio River, I had to go here twice as I forgot my camera. Their were some rainbow darters here and small orangey darters (forgot what kind, tangerine maybe?) Tons of shiners ranging from sand and striped shiners to high speed emeralds.

All and all it was a fun trip.

The next day was the after sampling event. What after sampling event? well, not so much an event as it was me satisfying my curiousity,

I was really curious on the stream on Rocky Fork Road by the park. It was a marshy stream full of sunfish.

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Deciding I wanted more minnows and darters not sunnies I didn't enter the water here and instead drove up the road to a small stream.

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here i found fantail darter

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stoneroller

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and greenside darter

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#18 Guest_Casper_*

Guests

Posted 07 October 2012 - 06:05 PM

Pretty cool Chaos. Thanks for sharing.
I have seen and read enough from you attendees that i kinda feel like i was there.

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#19 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

Guests

Posted 27 October 2012 - 02:43 PM

Why is a Redside Dace a Dace when it looks more like a Shiner? When i hear Dace i think of the gentle looking faces / snouts of SRBD, MRBD or Blacknose and Longnose Dace. The mouth on a Redside Dace appears so "agressive".
I guess my question is "What makes a Dace a Dace?"

For a while I was wondering what makes a fish a dace vs a chub and how related the fish within these groups are. While reading up on longnose dace for a report i have been too lazy to write I may have found a hint at an answer.

The Riffle Dace group Rhinicthys is a basal group for the North American Leuciscinae. Other North American Leuciscinae include the desert dace eremicthys, the hybopsis shiners and chubs, spikedace meda, moapa dace moapa, The easertn shiner group notropis, finescale dace phoxinus, the bluntnose minnows pimephales, the pike minnows pyychocheilus,

So if this wikipedia article is true some dace are closely related to other dace and non dace shiners, while others did not make the list. (whether through lake of relation or article inaccuracy I am not sure).

stranger still is that among the non American leucisinae are black carp, and grass carp. Making some kinds of carp close to dace perhaps? (oddly the european dace was also on the list making the Dace a possible close dace relative)