I've been a member of this forum for awhile, but never posted much. I mostly keep marine aquaria with native fish and inverts, but have previously had a few native freshwater setups. In the past few months I've gotten a freshwater system up and running again and may start up a few more small systems. I've been trying to find some locations to collect a couple of different species based on point maps from FishBase and literature searches, but with the droughts in recent years a lot of the older collections are from locations that are now dried up. I was wondering if anyone had any information on locations (preferably within a half an hour to hour's drive from Gainesville, FL) where I might be able to locate Fundulus lineolatus, F. cingulatus, Leptolucania ommata, Enneacanthus gloriosis, or E. obesus. I've found plenty of areas to find other local species: mosquitofish (including melanistic males), flagfish, golden topminnows, sailfin molly, various pygmy sunfish, swamp darters, brown darters, blackbanded darters, sailfin shiners, tadpole madtoms, and least killifish but have only seen (didn't catch) one topminnow that wasn't a golden and none of the other species I asked about. I also know where to get a plenty of non-native variable platys. I'd greatly appreciate any info and would be willing to share info about the places I've collected around here (some of the creeks within Gainesville, Newnans Lake, various locations on the Santa Fe River, a few locations on the Waccasassa River). Thanks in advance.

F. lineolatus - I think I've caught them in Cowpen Lake, east of Hawthorne on SR-20.
- but the primo site in this area for lineolatus is Hopkins Prairie, on FR86 in the Ocala National Forest (DeLorme Gazateer ... you have a DeLorme, si? ... map 73 B-2),. That's about 2 hours from Gvl, but so not so far if you make a day-trip circuit for some of these other fish.

F. cingulatus does not seem to be especially common in this area. On a couple of occasions I have found them in roadside ditches along SR-19, south of Palatka, say north or south 10 miles of the Rodman Dam area, in 2 or less inches of water. Don't know a consistent spot.

LO - don't know any spots within 90 minutes of Gvl. There probably are some, but not that I have run across. I know one spot a bit further away to the south, but the LO there are very blah. I'd like to know if you find any.

Enn gloriosus - you ought to be finding those almost anywhere you find F. chrysotus. Two good spots are at Lake Rodman, on the north side along Highway 310 where the road crosses Deep Creek (DeLorme map 67 D-1), and at the boat ramp at Orange Springs (map 66, D-3.) Deep Creek sometimes has a better than average ratio of melanistic chrysotus too, and sometimes baby bowfin. Both sites have flagfish and also bluefin killies (Lucania goodei) which you didn't mention as either already found or still looking for. I usually do Deep Creek because the routing is convenient but actually the workable shoreline at Orange Springs is larger and more fisheriferious.

Enn obesus - only spot I have seen them near Gvl is in Little Hatchet Creek, on Waldo Road just north of the airport. Found a couple on 2 out of 4 visits.

(Small possibly useful note: flagfish from Newnan's Lake seem to be extremely prone to becoming fuzzballs. Flagfish from Rodman don't have that problem in my experience.)

I'd volunteer to go with you but I'm tied up the next two weekends, and then there's the Great NANFA Annual Convention.

Imagine the kind of helpful advice you might get, if only you were a paid-up, sustaining member of NANFA. (hint, hint.)

HTH

Doug

Doug,

Thanks for all the info. Hopefully I'll get some free time to check out a few of the spots you suggested. I think I may have seen a couple of F. lineolatus in the Santa Fe River near I75 but was not able to catch them. I'm surprised I haven't found any Enneacanthus gloriosus, in some of the areas near the Santa Fe and Waccasassa Rivers that I've collected. Some of these locations looked pretty similar to areas where I used to collect when I lived down in Sarasota and regularly collected bluespotted sunfish. I forgot to mention the bluefin killis, I do find them pretty regularly. I actually stopped at Little Hatchet Creek (on SR 26) for the first time a week or so ago. Probably the most mosquitofish I've seen at one time, also lots of warmouth and flagfish, but not much else. The few flagfish I've caught from Newnans Lake and the ones I got out of Little Hatchet Creek did not have the fuzzball problem, but I have had that problem with sailfin mollys. I'll definitely look into joining NANFA as a full member. Maybe sometime in the future we can try to meet up to do some collecting.

Geoff