Today, Klaus schoening and myself got out for a bit. After the brief tour of my fishroom, we headed out to a local stream to get some SRBD for Klaus to take home. Unfortunately, few were to be found. Though we did get some fantastic Rainbow darters.

First location. SRBD creek
Rainbow Darter E. caeruleum
SRBD P. erthrogaster
Creek chub S. atromaculatus
Spotfin shiner C. spiloptera
Fantail darter E. flabellare
Blacknose dace R. atratulus
Central stoneroller C. anomalum
Sand/mimic shiner?
Striped shiner L. chrysocephalus
Johnny darter E. nigrum
Might have missed a couple



Second location Spring valley wildlife area
Central mudminnow Umbra limi
Bluegill L. macrochirus
Green sunfish L. cyanellus
Silverjaw minnow E. bucattus
Sand/Mimic shiner
Painted turtle size of quarter

Was your first location really called "SRBD Creek"? Inquiring minds want to know...

Was your first location really called "SRBD Creek"? Inquiring minds want to know...

Actually no, it is one of the few creeks in southwest Ohio that holds them, so the name is omitted. Sure you understand.

Glad you still managed to get out Matt!

I live in Dayton, Ohio and had never seen any red bellied dace in Ohio until a couple weeks ago when a friend and I stopped at a small unnamed farm creek on a neighbor's property to get some bait. About a third of the minnows I caught were red bellied dace. I caught close to 80 red bellied dace in an hour. I also caught brook stickleback, mottled sculpins, blacknose dace and creek chub. I only seined the first pool right by the road.
The only other red bellied dace I ever caught, were caught in Collins Center, New York in a small creek behind my girlfriend's parents house, back when I was an undergrad. I brought them back to Ohio in heavilly iced buckets and enjoyed keeping them for about 2 years.
Are redbellied dace hard to come by?
They are one of my favorite native fish I have kept.
When I was in highschool and college I used to travel all over the place catching different fish and reptiles. At one time I had 28 species of native Ohio fish.
I got out of natives when the state started changing the law on collecting reptiles. I used to teach some classes on reptiles for the Miami County Park Distict, but stopped because it became to expensive to get the permits and micro-chips. The laws seemed to be designed to make staying legal as hard as possible.
At one time ODNR had 3 sets of laws on turtles on their website that all contradicted each other. Their turtle primer said all turtles could be caught without limit, possesed and sold, the fishing section said only snapping turtles and softshells could be caught and sold and another section said 4 of each species except spotted turtles could be caught, not sold and that they had to have micro-chips inserted if over 4 inches in length.
I was pleasantly surprised when I found out last week that you could keep and sell native minnows and so called baitfish with a bait dealers license.
Keith C.

Southern redbelly's are not particularly difficult to find in Ohio the trick is just knowing where to look for them.

Thats a lot of fun.
Wish i knew of a place to catch fish

Thats a lot of fun.
Wish i knew of a place to catch fish

Where are you? Update your profile with your location information. Once we know where you are, maybe somebody can meet you for some collecting.

I was pleasantly surprised when I found out last week that you could keep and sell native minnows and so called baitfish with a bait dealers license.
Keith C.

Howdy Keith,

You don't even need that. You can keep 500 individuals with a fishing liscence, right?

There are tons of places to get redbelly dace around you in the upper Mad. The trick really is to get into a stream segment that's small enough to hold them, and finding a place where you have a good bridge crossing without a fiesty landowner. The dace really go for the 3' and less width streams, you'll find them in the pools, as I'm sure this is where you found them. Macochee and Kings Creek are great places to get them. The upper Darby is as well.

Todd

If you read the stream regs on seining in the fishing licence pamphlet, kings creek is off limits. The darby use to be but last years stream regs do not list it as so. Of course I should state, as I said above, this is from last years regulations I forgot to pick up one of the pamphlets when I got my licence this year so you should check in the pamphlet that comes along with your fishing licence to be sure. Todd is correct in that you don't need the bait dealers permit to keep minnows just if you intend to sell any you will then need the extra permit.

I remember that being on there before, but I didn't see it last year, and I don't see it this year:

http://www.dnr.state...shregs/main.htm

Who knows I may be mixing up past years regs but thats good for us that it's no longer there. I'm beginning to appreciate our state's rather loose regs in comparison to most more and more.

It is good to know I can legally keep natives. I'll have to seal my tanks and get them set up again. I probably need all new lights and filters. It has been a long time since I have had any tanks running.
Keith C.