3 replies to this topic

[mattknepley]

Snuck out for a morning's crick stomping. Caught yellowfin shiner (Notropis lutipinnis), dusky shiner (N. cumminsae), yellow bullhead (Ameiurus natalis), bluehead chub (Nocomis leptocephalus), pirate perch (Aphredoderus sayanus), and my fave, Christmas darter (Etheostoma hopkinsi). Found mostly gravid females, but a few males as well. The pictures only hint at the brilliance of the green on them, but still, don't the boys clean up nicely this time of year?
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[Michael Wolfe]

Matt is the King of Christmas (darters)... they seem to be THE darter down his way. That boy is still a little less red than I remember some of them getting... those red blotches practically merge into a full bar... but he has pretty much busted out the full can of green! Nice little fish.

[mattknepley]

It sure is nice, Gerald. If you ever find yourself down this way you do need to see them.

I don't know if I'm King, Michael, but I am certainly pretending to the throne! I live on the ridge that divides the Savannah and Santee River systems. Of the streams to my west, those that flow to the Savannah, I'd say your observation is correct; E. hopkinsi probably is the dominant darter. In my experience, anyway. Of the six streams in the Stevens Creek drainage I have sampled, they are the most numerous darter I have found in five of them. Hands down. Only at the Little River does another darter equal their numbers, and that is a Percina. (Blackbanded, P. nigrofasciata) Further north and south just a bit they are probably replaced by others, but in my little patch they reign.

They also seem to vary a bit by location, as far as colors go. Where we were in Edgefield Co. seems to have the most red. The females at the stream I was at today were almost unrecognizable- their patterns had almost completely broken down into an undecypherable, ugly mess of dark green, red, black, brown, and tan flecks. The males in these two pictures have some noticeable differences when you look at the shape and width of their green bars. I have to pay more attention to be sure I'm not just seeing what I think I see, and not what's really there, but it seems as if these subtle differences may be at least a little peculiar to different streams. Especially in regards to the horizontal, blackish "dot-stripe", amount and color of red bars, and width/shape of green bars.