Saturday I left Schenectady, NY about 5:15 am heading across VT to Josh's house in Richmond NH. As I crossed the mountains of VT and NH the view even in the dark was awesome. I could see the tops of other mountains poking through the clouds and as the light grew all the valleys were filled with clouds looking like puffy lakes and rivers. Gradually these turned to actual lakes and rivers of rising mists. The 2 and a half hour trip went by quickly and soon we were loading Josh's gear and headed another couple hours to the northeast to sample some tidal creek areas. We parked in a fishing access and parked anxious to get in the water. The tide was going out and left some rocky plant covered spots which looked perfect for some sticklebacks.
We caught several 3 spine sticklebacks and several 9 spine sticklebacks in about 20 minutes as well as a good number of mummichugs so we started checking out rocky areas with no vegetation and open areas to see what else might be found. Found an interesting looking 8 - 9 inch fish which we thought was some cod like fish and indeed it turned out to be a tomcod.
We also began to find some cool sculpins I believe were Grubbies most were about 2.5 inches and one was about 6 inch,
We had to be carefull as if we stood more then a few seconds our feet were locked in the tidal mud in fact it sucked us in so quickly in some areas you had to take quick short steps as if you stepped too far your back foot would already be locked in and it became difficult to stay balanced. Somehow we both avoided any falls. We decided to take some photos and visit the nearby Parks Vistor Center and aquarium. They had several tanks of marine and brackish fish. One tank had a number of longhorn sculpins and sea ravens about 14 inches, imagine a banded sculpin with spikes that would take 2 hands to hold, impressive fish. As Josh mentioned my favorite was the rock piled tank full of rock gunnels. Though at first glance all one could see was a head or 2 poking out of a crevice or hole here and there. But an accommodating attendant offered to toss in some food, actually tiny cyclops really meant for the other life in the tank. But suddenly every hole had a rock gunnel between 3 and 8 inches rushing out to see what morsels might be available. Definately will be looking to come gunning for gunnels next time. About 45 minutes later we were back to our site just on the other side of the bridge and the water level was clealy getting lower fast.
We found more of the previous fish except the tomcod and found 2 northern pipefish. Crabs were super abundant of a wide color range as well as sizes. Grass shrimp and those cool oppossum shrimp. We also saw a few shallow algae filled pools higher up on the opposite side of the road which were full of mummichugs.
We had a great day, great discoveries and great weather.
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