At the first Embarras River spot I left my net in the car so that I could focus on microfishing. I've found that my patience with hook & line fishing decreases substantially when I have a net sitting nearby. The Embarras here is mostly sandy flats and pools with submerged wood, but after a hike I was able to find one nice rocky riffle. Within minutes of finding the spot I found a madtom willing to bite. I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a mountain madtom!
Mountain Madtom in photo tank
Same fish in hand
Same fish chilling on a rock
So far I've avoided using photo tank pictures for my hook & line lifelist. I'm not exactly sure why I prefer a "fish in hand" or "fish on the ground" picture, but I do. Photo tank pictures are great for IDing fish, but for whatever reason I don't want them in my lifelist album.
The riffle was also full of slenderhead darters, but they weren't willing to play. They spooked very easily, and unlike other darter species that will move a couple feet away from you, the slenderheads would continue bolting until they were out of sight. Maybe in the spring they'll be braver and stick around. On the hike back I found some eastern sand darters on a shallow flat. They were really cool, but again were completely unwilling to play. I'll be back in the spring looking for them too.
The Embarras was full of monster mussels. There were a couple different species. Someday I'll have to learn what they are.
I encountered quite a few fish at a headwater spot much further upstream. The only one I photographed was this young redfin shiner.
At the Salt Fork I didn't feel like messing with the rod & reel, so I netted a few fish to see if I could find anything new. I found quite a few brindled madtoms, which will be a future microfishing target. It would be fun to come back to this spot at night with a headlamp and see if they are cruising around.
Brindled Madtom(s)
I also netted this dusky darter, which is the first I've encountered. Another springtime target for microfishing!
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