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Cacapon underwater videos

Started by Guest_tomterp_* , Dec 31 2013 04:37 PM

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45 replies to this topic

#21 Guest_Skipjack_*

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Posted 01 January 2014 - 09:02 PM

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.

And heck since minnows lack breeding colors in winter, if you can ID winter minnows, once they put on their spawning uniforms, it will be a cinch.

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#22 Guest_tomterp_*

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Posted 01 January 2014 - 09:58 PM

LOL, off goes the newb into the +34F water freezing has arse off while the minnows lie dormant in the detritus, awaiting the seines of spring. :-)

You must have me pegged for a fool, and this may be a correct assessment. O:)

I would be the kind of person to try winter seining in frigid temps. I have a motley collection of wetsuit parts (fit a bit snug these days) as well as a pair of cheap uninsulated waders, It's something I'd try if I thought I could find something. But I seldom see fish activity in the coldest months of winter.

I bought online access to the full Stauffer text, and there's one fish I'm sure I've run across there, a rosyface shiner notropus ruhellus. These seem to be common everywhere in the region.

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#23 Guest_Skipjack_*

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Posted 01 January 2014 - 10:25 PM

No, this is no hazing ritual. 100% serious. I can't count the times that I have stomped through a pool to break the ice up, just so we could drag a net. I avoid larger rivers, and stick to smaller streams (less likely hood of swimming), but winter is not a totally off season. I rarely stray as far from the vehicle either. The fish are still there, sometimes not where you might find them in warmer temps, but you will find them. Shallow riffles are often the easiest to work, and many darters are starting to color up.

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#24 Guest_daveneely_*

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Posted 02 January 2014 - 08:32 AM

No hazing ritual, but be careful -- pick warmer days (like not the next few days!), and keep an eye on water levels. Seining sucks when you pull up ten pounds of ice in your net with each haul, and the net freezes solid when it comes out of the water. I assume you already know about the USGS gauging station on the lower part of the river (http://waterdata.usg...ite_no=01611500); keep an eye on river levels and pick low water. While many fish do hide in leafpack in slower reaches, some things (darters, sculpins, hogsuckers, etc.) remain more active... and you might find some things that surprise you. I've snorkeled some other rivers on the north side of the mainstem in a drysuit during the winter. I stumbled on a few wintering holes where all of the smallmouth from a long reach of river had migrated downriver and were stacked up in deep, slow water. BIG smallmouth. Of course I went back with a canoe and a brown hair jig with a pork rind trailer...

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#25 mattknepley

NANFA Member

Smack-dab between the Savannah and the Saluda.

Posted 02 January 2014 - 03:38 PM

Nope, not hazing. My first real collecting was done in the winter.

Granted, it is a snid warmer down here, but I've been out seining and dipneting every month of the year and had success. I agree with Dave, the darters will still be active. The first turquoise, and blackbanded, darter I ever saw were on a trip to Georgia last Super Bowl Sunday seining with Micheal Wolfe. Also saw my first snail bullhead that day, too. The first Christmas darters I ever saw were dipneted in mid January. So if you can take the weather, the fish are there. Just have dry clothes and a warm car close by...

Matt Knepley
"No thanks, a third of a gopher would merely arouse my appetite..."

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#26 Guest_tricolor_*

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Posted 02 January 2014 - 03:38 PM

wondering is it usual for spotfins to have striking dark lateral stripe?

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#27 Guest_tomterp_*

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Posted 02 January 2014 - 07:47 PM

wondering is it usual for spotfins to have striking dark lateral stripe?

The stripes come and go with how happy they are. O:)

I am kind of thinking they might be this guy instead:

Posted Image

As soon as I can learn how to post a still photo I have a pretty decent cut from the video to post. It appears I can't upload directly, but have to link. Mods, is that correct?

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#28 Guest_tomterp_*

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Posted 02 January 2014 - 07:56 PM

Re hazing, that was mostly tongue in cheek, but I do appreciate the cold weather recommendations!

Ok, I am tempted to derail my own thread, but will take just a small step in that direction. Re the Stauffer book, I've been grinding through fish by fish where is posted a map of the state's streams with a "dot" wherever surveys turned that particular species. I have already found several cases where I could expand on the survey results a bit. Re the Cacapon, I'm pretty sure that musky have been caught in the mouth area, probably residents of the Potomac but it is common for those to explore the tributaries for a short distance. I recall seeing a youtube video of an angler landing one in the mouth area.

The Black Crappie map showed only a few sites in the eastern panhandle with fish found (and none in the Cacapon), but in 2002 a friend of mine from Texas (Jeff Z., a member of the Dallas Fly Fishers) and I forged our way across the river at fairly high April stage and parked at the "low" dam a bit downstream of the large power dam. Jeff pulled 5 crappie from a pool below the dam, a fish I had not seen there before. I called Jeff tonight, and he checked his log from the trip to confirm and followed up with a clear picture. So there's one species for sure that existed for a while at least. I'm guessing those two dams create enough brushy slackwater to hold them.

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#29 Guest_daveneely_*

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Posted 02 January 2014 - 08:08 PM

Spotails also have a more loaf-of-bread shaped cross section on the front half of the body, and are often really pale, almost translucent above that stripe. Spotfins have a more side-to-side flattened body, and if they have a caudal spot, it's either (in life) an oval expansion of the lateral stripe and further forward on the caudal peduncle than whet you see in spottails or (dead, preserved so that all of the silvery guanine disappears) a relatively indistinct square or triangular spot. I didn't see anything in the videos that you've already posted that look like spottails.

That bigger dam is also a %$*&%^ to portage a canoe over. Don't ask me how I know that... Even worse, the kid in the front of the canoe did it with all three trebles of a F11 Rapala stuck in his back.

Both muskie and walleye probably run all the way upstream to that bigger dam. I'd be surprised if they can get over it, even in high water. FWIW, back in the mid-1980s I heard from a friend of mine in Fort Ashby that a buddy of his had stocked muskie in the section of Pattersons Creek flowing through his property. This is totally anecdotal, but might explain their rapid spread through the drainage given that neither MD, WV, or VA had stocked real muskies by that point, and fits with their subsequent appearance throughout the drainage downstream of there...

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#30 Guest_ashtonmj_*

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Posted 02 January 2014 - 08:21 PM

Can't say we've picked up a satinfin in the Potomac proper from Allegany to Montgomery counties in the last few years. It's been all spotfin. Purposely keeping 25-50% just to be sure. I did come across a shield darter or two with Starnes at Plummers Island a few years ago. Also found them at a few localities in the Monocacy where there were "historic". I want to say we even have a recent record from Antietam Ck. There is a NAWQA or EMAP record of P. notogramma, which is undoubtedly a mis-ID, from somewhere further upstream (Conococheague?).

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#31 Guest_daveneely_*

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Posted 02 January 2014 - 08:24 PM

There is a NAWQA or EMAP record of P. notogramma, which is undoubtedly a mis-ID, from somewhere further upstream (Conococheague?).

What, are you saying you don't trust those IDs 100%...

[Snort, snicker, giggle]

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#32 Guest_ashtonmj_*

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Posted 02 January 2014 - 08:32 PM

If you would have heard the objections to the proposed additional QA/QC for fish in Region 3 for EPA National Rivers and Streams Assessments...picked up some 8 anal rayed swallowtails this year. Even through Rich for a loop.

Hoping to get our mainstem community data up onto the web after this years sampling is wrapped up.

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#33 Michael Wolfe

Board of Directors

North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 02 January 2014 - 08:47 PM

regards your N. hudsonius speculation... Dave is talking overall body shape, and that is of course good... but also look at the dorsal fins... the Cyprinella often have some version of a dark mark in the dorsal; most Notropis do not, and N. hudsonius certainly does not. And although I would say that those lateral dark lines are extra dark, it is not an uncommon characteristic for some other Cyprinella (I'm thinking nivea, and well as some of my locals around here).

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

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#34 Guest_tomterp_*

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Posted 02 January 2014 - 09:24 PM

regards your N. hudsonius speculation... Dave is talking overall body shape, and that is of course good... but also look at the dorsal fins... the Cyprinella often have some version of a dark mark in the dorsal; most Notropis do not, and N. hudsonius certainly does not. And although I would say that those lateral dark lines are extra dark, it is not an uncommon characteristic for some other Cyprinella (I'm thinking nivea, and well as some of my locals around here).

Yo

The fish I was seeing (and you can see this briefly in the video) have a few dorsal rays with color, rays closer to the body, Here's a somewhat grainy image of one of the little nippers. They move fast so it's hard to get details underwater. Note the band appears black here but is really a deep blue.

Posted Image

Edited by tomterp, 02 January 2014 - 09:28 PM.

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#35 Michael Wolfe

Board of Directors

North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 02 January 2014 - 09:32 PM

Yep, there is even a Cyprinella down here in the south called a bluestripe shiner... and the C. leedsi that are one of my local favs have that dark, navy stripe like that (although not normally al the way up n their cheek like yours). Your fish is definitely your local Cyprinella (and whichever one Dave says will be right).

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

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#36 Guest_Kanus_*

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Posted 02 January 2014 - 11:00 PM

I would agree that those Cyprinella don't look like the satinfins I'm used to seeing. More elongate, and I rarely see any kind of definitive stripe on the side of satinfins. Not that I've seen many spotfins, but I would definitely vote for that. Also, this isn't a very good photo, but could be of some limited use since oftentimes this fish look a little different in the water than outside the water: Spottail shiner (N. hudsonius) from the Rapidan R outside of Fredericksburg VA

Posted Image

Whenever I see these, they are usually in a relatively tight, large school (compared to anything else up in that area, typically dozens), often milling about near the bottom along slower margins near fast water. They seem to like margins near water-willow. Problem is, they're pretty spooky when you're in the water with them. May be a reason why this is the best photo I have

Welcome to the forum, Tom. I know Bob (and Joshua Wiegert, if you're a PVAS member) from when I lived in Fredericksburg and have swapped collecting stories and fish IDs with him plenty, though we never managed to get out collecting together.

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#37 Guest_daveneely_*

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Posted 03 January 2014 - 09:18 AM

I'd still say that Tom's fish is most likely a spotfin. The head shape and mouth orientation aren't right for spottail (compare the pointy head and nearly terminal mouth on Tom's fish vs. rounded snout and nearly inferior mouth in Derek's); on Tom's fish you can also see the crosshatching that makes so many of the Cyprinella look like they have diamond-shaped scales and there's clearly pigment on the dorsal fin (not present in spottails).

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#38 Guest_tomterp_*

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Posted 03 January 2014 - 10:26 AM

Whenever I see these, they are usually in a relatively tight, large school (compared to anything else up in that area, typically dozens), often milling about near the bottom along slower margins near fast water. They seem to like margins near water-willow. Problem is, they're pretty spooky when you're in the water with them. May be a reason why this is the best photo I have

Welcome to the forum, Tom. I know Bob (and Joshua Wiegert, if you're a PVAS member) from when I lived in Fredericksburg and have swapped collecting stories and fish IDs with him plenty, though we never managed to get out collecting together.

Thanks for the welcome Derek. Yes, I'm a member of PVAS though haven't really been very active, not unlike my lurking membership to NANFA. I was also a member of PRSC (Potomac River Smallmouth Club) for a lot of years and even a few years in GWAPA. Professionally I'm a beancounter but fish, whether they be at the end of a line, in aquaria or just observing, are my hobby and passion.

Collecting with Bob or anyone who knows what they are doing is a great experience. He turned me on to satinfins and on the same trip we scrounged up a couple of juvenile american eels, astonishing to me as I'd never seen them in small freshwater streams before. I took him out in my canoe (Little Hunting Creek) once - my boat, his brain - and we found 13 species, though not the snakehead fry we sought. Included in the 13 was a beautiful bluespotted sunny, a fish I had never seen as an angler for obvious reasons. (Speaking of snakehead fry, I later found thousands. They are easy to spot in the tidal marshes of Mattawoman and other Potomac creeks, and so numerous. Distinctive yellow color).

Back to spottail/spotfin discussion - your description of their prefered lairs and behavior does NOT sync with my observations of my Cacapon shiner. These do not school tightly, are quite random in their darting about (most likely not randon at all, they are feeding on tiny organisms) and seem to love fast current, have no inclination to hold in SAV.

My rosyside dace are about at the end of their life (over 4 now) while I have all I want 100 yards from my house, I think I may go for a few of the Cacapon minnows next setup.

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#39 Guest_Kanus_*

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Posted 03 January 2014 - 12:21 PM

Yeah I agree with everyone that your shiners are spotfins. I was posting the spottails more as a reference so you could get a feel for them in case you came across any this upcoming season.