Inspired in part by videos posted here, I put a mask on and plunged below the surface 3 years ago into the Cacapon River in WV, and after quite a bit of trial and error am posting the first video output.
As much a newbie as I am to underwater video, I am also a beginner level native fish hobbyist, and have a lot of trouble identifying many of the shiners and darters I encounter.
I'd appreciate any feedback I can get, and in particular, can anyone help to identify these lively cyprinids that got right up in my face this past September?
I have yet to see any other Cacapon underwater video, but if you know of any please share!
Tom
Cacapon underwater videos
Started by
Guest_tomterp_*
, Dec 31 2013 04:37 PM
45 replies to this topic
#2
Guest_tomterp_*
Guest_tomterp_*
-
- Guests
Posted 31 December 2013 - 04:42 PM
Here are a couple more I've posted to youtube - a single darter (likely tessellated, but alternative suggestions welcome) and a pair. The larger one may be the same in both videos.
2 years ago I located a pod of what I believe were rainbow darters, but the spot (about 3' by 3') wasn't accessible this year at the water levels present. There was quite a nice little colony of them, can't wait to get back at them this summer with my GoPro.
2 years ago I located a pod of what I believe were rainbow darters, but the spot (about 3' by 3') wasn't accessible this year at the water levels present. There was quite a nice little colony of them, can't wait to get back at them this summer with my GoPro.
#3
Guest_gerald_*
Guest_gerald_*
-
- Guests
Posted 31 December 2013 - 04:58 PM
The shiners up-close are a Cyprinella species, either spotfin or satinfin (or both).
Cant get a good look at the darters but I agree that tesselated is a good guess.
Cant get a good look at the darters but I agree that tesselated is a good guess.
#4
Guest_Skipjack_*
Guest_Skipjack_*
-
- Guests
Posted 31 December 2013 - 05:31 PM
Without a good look at the darters, I cannot be sure, but the markings on the side are pretty distinct, and the head seems fairly large. Are greenside darters a possibility? Habitat leans towards greenside, but could hold tesselated. Though if this winter or spring, I would expect more color if they were greensides.
#5
Guest_daveneely_*
Guest_daveneely_*
-
- Guests
Posted 31 December 2013 - 08:49 PM
There's no records of satinfin shiners from the Cacapon in Stauffer's Fishes of West Virginia, but they could certainly be there. Just based on body shape they look more like spotfins.
Matt's right -- the darter looks like a greenside, which has recently spread across much of the drainage exclusive of the Shenandoah.
Nice videos!
Matt's right -- the darter looks like a greenside, which has recently spread across much of the drainage exclusive of the Shenandoah.
Nice videos!
#6
Guest_Gavinswildlife_*
Guest_Gavinswildlife_*
-
- Guests
Posted 31 December 2013 - 11:44 PM
Well, I see smallmouth bass.
#7
Guest_daveneely_*
Guest_daveneely_*
-
- Guests
Posted 01 January 2014 - 08:28 AM
well, yeah... and longear sunfish, and possibly a stoneroller off in the haze, but I don't think that's what Tom was asking about.
#8
Guest_tomterp_*
Guest_tomterp_*
-
- Guests
Posted 01 January 2014 - 11:23 AM
Well, I see smallmouth bass.
Shhh....
Well, in addition to keeping a few fish (roseyside and blacknose dace at the moment) I like to catch them as well, and the smallmouth fishing in the Cacapon has been simply outstanding the last couple of years. A sharp increase in SAV has underpinned a boom in many fishes, and quite a few quality smallmouth as well. Plenty over 18".
#9
Guest_tomterp_*
Guest_tomterp_*
-
- Guests
Posted 01 January 2014 - 11:43 AM
There's no records of satinfin shiners from the Cacapon in Stauffer's Fishes of West Virginia, but they could certainly be there. Just based on body shape they look more like spotfins.
Matt's right -- the darter looks like a greenside, which has recently spread across much of the drainage exclusive of the Shenandoah.
Nice videos!
Thank you Dave.
I'm pretty sure these particular shiners are not satinfins, I have caught and kept them before and these aren't the same. (Some of you may know of Bob Bock, he's a former NANFA leader and a few years ago he took me on a successful expedition to his little known satinfin hole inside the DC beltway.) However, on several occasions in the Cacapon I HAVE seen the telltail "glowing" of the edges of their fins that really distinguish satinfins and possibly a few other similar species. I wouldn't rule it out at all that there may be some there.
Regarding Stauffers book, I am not familiar with it and am frustrated by the lack of decent pictures for so many species in the Peterson's Field Guide or the Audobon field guide. That might be worth checking out. I did quite a bit if searching for a survey of Cacapon fish and didn't really find anything. I admit to being partly motivated by a sense that there are species present that have yet to be associated with that particular watershed, given the lack of survey data combined wiht the diverse habitat available that could cause survey results to be incomplete.
Those darters I was chasing had zero color, which is why I ascribed them as possibly tessellated. I have seen darters with coloring, the blue bands (not during spawning season) led me to think they were rainbow. I'm champing at the bit to get back up there.
After posting the videos I watched them via youtube and it's obvious a LOT of the crisp detail I had in my originals was lost in the translation. I'm going to go back today and see if I can snip a single frame image with more clarity to share here.
Edited by tomterp, 01 January 2014 - 11:44 AM.
#10
Guest_tomterp_*
Guest_tomterp_*
-
- Guests
Posted 01 January 2014 - 11:49 AM
well, yeah... and longear sunfish, and possibly a stoneroller off in the haze, but I don't think that's what Tom was asking about.
The sunfish are really nice there. Longear, redbreast, I think pumkinseed as well.
I was for years puzzled by the sometimes quite substantial piles of small stones that litter the river bottom in places, till I learned more about stonerollers. Certainly plenty of those present. This particular video effort was focused on the cyprinids and darters, but plenty of others wanted in on the action. More than once I've viewed a video later and found things in it I didn't notice while snorkeling.
#11
Guest_Skipjack_*
Guest_Skipjack_*
-
- Guests
Posted 01 January 2014 - 12:19 PM
The large piles of stones are more likely from whatever Nocomis chub is in your area.
#12
Michael Wolfe
-
- Board of Directors
-
- North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage
Posted 01 January 2014 - 12:41 PM
Het Tom, nice vids. And yes, some of us know Bob. He is still a NANFA leader as a regional rep for Maryland.
I agree with you about YouTube degrading the quality of videos. You might want to check out vimeo as an alternate place to post.
I agree with you about YouTube degrading the quality of videos. You might want to check out vimeo as an alternate place to post.
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin
#13
mattknepley
-
- NANFA Member
- Smack-dab between the Savannah and the Saluda.
Posted 01 January 2014 - 01:47 PM
Love those curious shiners! Thanks for posting, and glad to hear the smb are doing well in your part of WV! (I'm not the bass hater some here are, although even then, smb doesn't seem to suffer too much in the reputation department. The worst vitriol seems reserved for spotteds and largemouths...) 
Matt Knepley
"No thanks, a third of a gopher would merely arouse my appetite..."
"No thanks, a third of a gopher would merely arouse my appetite..."
#14
Guest_daveneely_*
Guest_daveneely_*
-
- Guests
Posted 01 January 2014 - 01:50 PM
Tom,
Large breeding male spotfins can also have the glowey-glowey fin margins when they're fired up.
Large portions of Stauffer's book are available on Google Books. The original was printed by the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia press, and I suspect they'd still have hard copy available. If not, there's always Bookfinder. Fishes are drawn as b&w line/stipple illustrations, so you might not be wowed -- but the book is worthwhile just for the maps alone. Rumor has a new Fishes of WV in the works, and possibly pretty close to coming out.
Some other things you might want to keep a particular eye out for include eastern silvery minnow and shield darter. Both are rare that far west in the Potomac, but distributions aren't static and oddballs may pop up.
...and Matt's right -- rock piles are the work of Nocomis, not Campostoma.
Large breeding male spotfins can also have the glowey-glowey fin margins when they're fired up.
Large portions of Stauffer's book are available on Google Books. The original was printed by the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia press, and I suspect they'd still have hard copy available. If not, there's always Bookfinder. Fishes are drawn as b&w line/stipple illustrations, so you might not be wowed -- but the book is worthwhile just for the maps alone. Rumor has a new Fishes of WV in the works, and possibly pretty close to coming out.
Some other things you might want to keep a particular eye out for include eastern silvery minnow and shield darter. Both are rare that far west in the Potomac, but distributions aren't static and oddballs may pop up.
...and Matt's right -- rock piles are the work of Nocomis, not Campostoma.
#15
Guest_tomterp_*
Guest_tomterp_*
-
- Guests
Posted 01 January 2014 - 01:57 PM
The large piles of stones are more likely from whatever Nocomis chub is in your area.
Gotcha. So much to learn here. Plenty of chubs / suckers in the Cacapon.
#16
Guest_tomterp_*
Guest_tomterp_*
-
- Guests
Posted 01 January 2014 - 02:08 PM
Tom,
Large breeding male spotfins can also have the glowey-glowey fin margins when they're fired up.
Large portions of Stauffer's book are available on Google Books. The original was printed by the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia press, and I suspect they'd still have hard copy available. If not, there's always Bookfinder. Fishes are drawn as b&w line/stipple illustrations, so you might not be wowed -- but the book is worthwhile just for the maps alone. Rumor has a new Fishes of WV in the works, and possibly pretty close to coming out.
Some other things you might want to keep a particular eye out for include eastern silvery minnow and shield darter. Both are rare that far west in the Potomac, but distributions aren't static and oddballs may pop up.
...and Matt's right -- rock piles are the work of Nocomis, not Campostoma.
Thanks Dave. I'd love to have the new WV book when it's available, and wouldn't turn my nose up at Stauffer's either. I did forget I also have the massive Axelrod's Atlas of Freshwater Aquarium Fishes, which has quite a few color plates too.
My best approach for identifying species would be to capture and take quality photos for later help, and/or to bring human resources with me. Besides Bob I know a couple other folks in the DC area who aren't averse to the 2 hour trip up to Great Cacapon. My family owns a small cabin so we have the luxury of being able to stay over if necessary.
One would think that by 2014 you would find every stream nearly fully surveyed and / or complete as to found species, but it's clearly not the case at all. In a way it's a bit frustrating when you lack the skills to get a handle on it, but on the other hand it may represent an opportunity to fill in a hole or two. Shield darters, eh?
#17
Guest_daveneely_*
Guest_daveneely_*
-
- Guests
Posted 01 January 2014 - 02:50 PM
One would think that by 2014 you would find every stream nearly fully surveyed and / or complete as to found species, but it's clearly not the case at all. In a way it's a bit frustrating when you lack the skills to get a handle on it, but on the other hand it may represent an opportunity to fill in a hole or two. Shield darters, eh?
Keep in mind that a lot of surveys are done by fisheries folks that are more interested in gamefish. Not that that's entirely bad, it's just a function of priorities. That said, you'd be surprised at how much solid effort has been done out there. Many of those dots in the book are represented by voucher specimens in a natural history museum. If anyone ever doubts the validity of the record, they can visit that museum or ask for a loan of that specimen and check it themselves. These things take time and $. Also, as mentioned before, things move or are moved around...
Funny thing is, I'm currently only about an hour away from the Cacapon. If I weren't fighting a nasty cold, I'd probably be out chasing fish somewhere in the area.
#18
Guest_tomterp_*
Guest_tomterp_*
-
- Guests
Posted 01 January 2014 - 04:20 PM
Dave, I've been perusing the Stauffer book as suggested and spotfin shiners look like the prime suspect based on the geographical map. There's a collection "dot" exactly where I video'd and all up and down the Cacapon watershed as well.
I was suprised to see this however - that the genus Cyprinella is represented in the state by only 4 species - satinfin, spotfin, whitetail and steelcolor. Plenty of notropis, however, including the spottail shiner Notropis hudsonius which is also found in the watershed. The spottail however seems to show yellow along the abdomen which I've not seen.
Do you get out in the winter? Can't see myself snorkeling, that's for sure. May - October for me. Seining however, might stretch the limits a bit.
I was suprised to see this however - that the genus Cyprinella is represented in the state by only 4 species - satinfin, spotfin, whitetail and steelcolor. Plenty of notropis, however, including the spottail shiner Notropis hudsonius which is also found in the watershed. The spottail however seems to show yellow along the abdomen which I've not seen.
Funny thing is, I'm currently only about an hour away from the Cacapon. If I weren't fighting a nasty cold, I'd probably be out chasing fish somewhere in the area.
Do you get out in the winter? Can't see myself snorkeling, that's for sure. May - October for me. Seining however, might stretch the limits a bit.
Edited by tomterp, 01 January 2014 - 04:21 PM.
#19
Guest_Skipjack_*
Guest_Skipjack_*
-
- Guests
Posted 01 January 2014 - 08:53 PM
I think most outside of the deep south, put away their snorkels this time of the year, but many still seine. Good waders, long johns, neoprene gloves, and it is tolerable. Also if you plan to actually keep fish for an aquarium, fish from cool water seem to be less disease prone. I suspect that viral, bacterial, and parasite loads are lower this time of year. I have seen Casper snorkel in some mighty cold water without a wetsuit, I would not be surprised if a few donned a wetsuit and snorkeled this time of year. The water around here is much clearer during the winter when there is less algae.
You could still seine, and get those ID photos so you are ahead of the game in the spring.
You could still seine, and get those ID photos so you are ahead of the game in the spring.
#20
Michael Wolfe
-
- Board of Directors
-
- North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage
Posted 01 January 2014 - 08:58 PM
Totally agree with Matt. Seining is good in the winter and although fish are not in high breeding color, you can get very good photo tank identification pictures in the winter.
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin
0 user(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users
NANFA Youtube Channel 
