4 replies to this topic

[Michael Wolfe]

I figured that the "official start of summer" would be a good day for NANFA Georgia to get out in the water. I wanted to head over to the Augusta area and check out a spot that I had been to a few years back helping Jason Allen with his doctoral thesis work. We were a littel concerned about higher than usual water, but decided we would still be able to have a good day. I checked out a few other location from the "Dead Fish in Jars Database" (AKA Fishnet2) in case my one pick was not successful. I was hoping to see Fundulus lineolatus and Etheostoma fricksium as both have type localities that, are poorly described, but essentially just "in the vicinity of Augusta".

Several folks wanted to go, but injuries and jet lag took its toll and we ended up with just me, Alejandro, and Jeff W and his wife Marie. With this committed group we met at my house in Athens, looked at my growing "convention" flame chubs, and left for Augusta.

We had a very successful adventure at Boggy Gut Creek. Not only did we get the fish we were looking for (more an that later) but we also found this good looking girl... I mean with camo like that...



and a face like this...


How can you not lover her?

Well enough tetrapods, this is a fish forum.

This was a Georgia trip so we have to include a blackbanded darter pic. Boy there were a ton of these guys, and more out in the open that I usually see them.


We were also fortunate to not only see (which was the easy part) but actually net a few Fundulus. One or two made it in the seine, but Alejandro had to hunt the males individually with a dip net. You have to love sexually dimorphic species. And lined topminnows have to be one of the most simple schemes... males have vertical marks... females have horizontal. You almost have to feel bad for poor old Agassiz, to see these two and figure out that they are even the same species.



This is a known site for Pteronotropis stonei and they were out in force. Staking out their space in the flow between the ribbon grass, in a sunny spot, they were easy to see and not too difficult to net out of the clear tea colored water.


Our other target fish for the day was the Savannah Darter. These eluded us for quite a while. Well, it was probably our fault. As they say, if you want to see different fish, seine different habitat. And I think we were probably just not looking in the right place. When we did, we quickly came up with a few. Some still fat females and a mostly colored up male.



We spent so much time hunting fish and scouting out the botany, that we never made it the other sites. And we didnt need to as we had a great time and saw the primary target fishes. A perfect start for the summer!

[Michael Wolfe]

I never knew that about softshells either (the color I mean, I knew they could bite quick and hard, so made sure that Alejandro did all the turtle wrangling!)... but when I was investigating to see if there was any specific sub-species or whatever, I ran into the fact that apparently juveniles start out light tan and spotted... males grow and get darker but keep the spotted pattern... females grow larger and get an overall mottled camo coloration with just remnants of the spots showing through.

[mattknepley]

Looks like a really fun spot, Michael. Sorry I missed it. Those P. stonei are some kind of pretty fish. Would loved to have seen them in the wild. That's a nice lookin' turtle, too.