Thinking on what water could be deep enough to submerge in and riffley I decided to try the Ashuelot by the woolen mill dam. My first step was going out into the fastest section of the water that was deep enough to submerge in and lie down. BAD NEWS. It's like a hurricane, and lying down I am much more bouyant and streamlined. I had to grab onto a rock to keep from being swept away. I had worries before entering, but they were all worries on snapping turtles, leeches, and hellgrammites (especially since this monster was found overseas http://www.iflscienc...sect-discovered At this size I think the grammite is silent.) All things which kill alot less people than the rivers themselves.
After struggling crawling from rock to rock (many of which rolled out from under my grasp), I decided to sit up (a position where I would not be swept away) and scoot to a section where the current was weaker as the river widened.
Here I was soon greeted by a school of minnows and a couple darters. The darters themselves surprised me. I seen tesselates in riffles twice before but usually see them in slow water and have read they are slow water fish. But in my time here I saw six of them, all heading upstream.
In fact a darter got me my best fish photo of the trip. I am especially proud of this photo. Maybe I will head to photograph at the next convention (which I deemed too far to drive to and lug fish from, neither of which I need to do if I go to photograph).
I am amazed at how speckled they are, most tessies I net or have kept in tanks are pale sandy colores except for the X and W pattern. The speckling is new to me.
Come to find out (as I researches online afterward) darters were important to the removal of the dam that was at this site as they host the endangered dwarf web mussels larvae.
http://ecophotograph...al-documentary/
In this photo the minnow at the top is most visible, but on the rock are two darters.
Here is a close up of them
This one is not as good
The little minnows who attended my presence were mostly fallfish, but I would not be surprised if a couple rhinicthys were their as I usually find them when sampling this spot. However after a bit when under thew ater all minnows with lateral stripes start blending together.
My videos this time were much worse as it is alot harder to aim and hold still in strong current. The fact that fish do not hold still makes it worse. I have to work on stability in current more.
I tried to capture video of the minnows nibbling my arm hair like Wispfox did with his sunnies. They did not cooperate and moved further up my arm to avoid the camera, then back down when I tried following them. Sadly no nibbles happened on film but they DID happen,
This one a minnow had an odd behavior of swimming up to a rock constantly. I hoped video would reveal what it was doing. Sadly it swam to a part of the rock mostly out of view so I didn't get to see why the rock fascinated it so.
A darter very briefly at the start of the video
The rest of these are just various minnow videos.
This one gives an idea of how fast the water in the slow part of the riffle moved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rOIX1IS6Zjg&list=UUOQvbCU7_gwYDqZUQzn8nhA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUOQvbCU7_gwYDqZUQzn8nhA&feature=player_detailpage&v=SHQStahUKP4
One thing that surprised me is how differently minnows and darters handled current. Minnows tended to get blown around by it, using the effect, or jerkilly move with its changes. Darters powered through current in forward hops and sometimes outright swimming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9I2t7g2S7h8&list=UUOQvbCU7_gwYDqZUQzn8nhA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gROKu9mim9c&list=UUOQvbCU7_gwYDqZUQzn8nhA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&list=UUOQvbCU7_gwYDqZUQzn8nhA&v=y7SNUssFmLI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&list=UUOQvbCU7_gwYDqZUQzn8nhA&v=tsdwm1xY6YU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CJltTAcsTU&list=UUOQvbCU7_gwYDqZUQzn8nhA&feature=player_detailpage
NANFA Youtube Channel 
