Where have you found Redline Darters?

My friend Justin Baker is doing his masters on these fish and needs to get samples of them throughout their range. If anyone has caught them and doesn't mind giving up sample locations, particularly in North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee that would be appreciated. You can PM them to me so exact locals are not posted openly on the web, if you have GPS coordinates that would be excellent. He has some samples from the Valley River in North Carolina and a couple other locations but is planning to go out to collect some more soon. He is doing a genetics study with them. The other possibility would be if you happen to live near a population of these he could use just fin clips from them that are preserved in ethanol which would allow the fish to be released unharmed minus a small portion of a fin, if there are those out there that would like to contribute more than a collection site. Thanks for any help you may be able to provide, and again don't post exact locals here just PM them to me and I will pass them along.

Here's a few pics he took of the highly variable males he found in the Valley River...
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There are quite a few genetic samples of these already out there, right? I'm guessing this has to do with morphological variations seen between Cumberland and TN and even a bit within the TN drainage? You can get them ANYWHERE really. In Tennessee I encounter them at nearly any site I sampled (All of the French Broad below Douglas Dam, the Holston below Cherokee, the Little River, actually not in the lower Hiwassee, Duck, etc.) They are also pretty common, not as much as TN tribs, in Cumberland drainage streams like the Stones and Roaring. Really the questions is where can't you get them. Don't recall seeing too many in the Collins/Caney Fork above Center Hill, they are replaced mostly by E. sanguifluum. Like I said they're in the Duck but to the untrained person a drab female could at first be mistaken for an E. aquali, and we don't want that to happen!

Does he want VA sites as well? They are found all over the VA section of the TN drainage.

Sure the VA sites can't hurt but he does not have a permit for there so sample from someone else might be more the way to go.

gerald, can you PM that info to brian?

It'd be easier to list the places I have NOT caught redlines in their range... And dang, I can't even think of that.

And that's everywhere from the Little Buffalo off the Natchez Trace in the middle of nowhere...

To behind the Auto Zone in Pigeon Forge, TN right below where they have all the helicopters flying back and forth from flying Cove Mountain and Wear Valley.

Really, it'd be easier to know what route he wants to take, and then give him spots along the way. He could literally do this by looking up the state parks in TN and just going to them. Then, look for dams. Matt, is there a lowhead guide for TN?

If he hit below all of those, he'd be in a good standing.

Todd

Not that I know of. I know where quite a few are though. Following low heads he could go all the way from the Little Pigeon down the TN river, hit the Little, Casper's back yard, the Sequatchie, a few inbetween taking you to at least the bend before the state line and that would be the "upper" section of the river. I've only sampled in the Duck from the lower Tennessee, well I guess the Paint Rock too. The one place I'm not sure of their availability is the lower Emory. In the winter it has some nice riffles, but it could be impounded this time of year. Everything above that is a National Rec Area, so it's off limits to that without a seperate permit.

Redlines can be found in the upper Paint Rock tributaries in Alabama, like Estill Fork and Hurricane Creek, and other Tennessee tributaries on the north side of the river like Piney Creek and the Cypress Creek system, and Bear Creek on the south side of the river (which is an interestingly anomalous creek in a lot of ways...).

They were quite common down in the RM 15-25 range too. It's all private land though.

Since I looked at it again, I'm not quite sure I buy that first specimen as a male based on color.

There are quite a few genetic samples of these already out there, right? I'm guessing this has to do with morphological variations seen between Cumberland and TN and even a bit within the TN drainage? You can get them ANYWHERE really. In Tennessee I encounter them at nearly any site I sampled (All of the French Broad below Douglas Dam, the Holston below Cherokee, the Little River, actually not in the lower Hiwassee, Duck, etc.) They are also pretty common, not as much as TN tribs, in Cumberland drainage streams like the Stones and Roaring. Really the questions is where can't you get them. Don't recall seeing too many in the Collins/Caney Fork above Center Hill, they are replaced mostly by E. sanguifluum. Like I said they're in the Duck but to the untrained person a drab female could at first be mistaken for an E. aquali, and we don't want that to happen!

Man I wished that was/is my experience. I have only seen them once. But my collecting is very limited in range. I caught the only ones I have seen with seine in Eastridge Tennessee. If you can point me where they may be easily caught with dip nets anyone in my area ( Chattanooga and surrounding area ) that would be great. I have a couple of forum friends that would like a couple pair each.

Thanks everyone for all the replies, I also got quite a few pm's all fo which I forwarded to Justin so hopefully he got some good leads out of all of this.