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GRRR! Little Green Sunnies wiped out Flagfins


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#1 Guest_Mysteryman_*

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Posted 02 August 2014 - 12:28 PM

One of the best Flagfin Shiner habitats has been wiped out by Little Green Sunfish.

Here in Andalusia, Alabama, one of the biggest populations of Flagfins, possibly the biggest, has been destroyed.
The land had been bought by some rich idiot from Connecticut who bought a chunk of swampland sight unseen over the internet, and I was worried that there would be a problem arising from that someday when he decided to retire and move down here to build his dream home.
No such luck.

The creek was dammed up a couple of miles downstream to create a lake around which several other rich folks built their own dream homes. For a few years I was worried about that, too, but it actually only helped the Flagfins, which no longer had to travel so far downstream in the winter to find warmer water. Their population didn't dwindle, but instead exploded.

I went to the site yesterday to see how things were going and to collect a few specimens, but couldn't find a single one. Instead, "their" creek was full of Little Green Sunfish, and they have apparently eaten everything else in sight.

The people of the lakefront community downstream decided to stock the lake with Greens for use as forage for the Largemouth Bass they also stocked. The Bass didn't swim upstream, but the sunnies did.

I can't even express how angry I am over this. I just wish there was something I could DO about it.

Hmm.... would it be possible to Rotenone the creek to wipe out all the sunnies, and install some sort of excluder to keep the sunnies out of the creek while letting reintroduced shiners come & go as they pleased?

Edited by Mysteryman, 02 August 2014 - 12:30 PM.


#2 Guest_Skipjack_*

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Posted 02 August 2014 - 01:48 PM

.

Hmm.... would it be possible to Rotenone the creek to wipe out all the sunnies, and install some sort of excluder to keep the sunnies out of the creek while letting reintroduced shiners come & go as they pleased?


Yes, it probably would, if it weren't for those pesky laws. Would also need to be a fairly high waterfall to keep greens at bay.

#3 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 03 August 2014 - 12:00 PM

Why must that guy from Connecticut bring the history of fish in New England with him for a live demonstration. :(

Really, read Fishing in New Hampshire, a History by Jack Noon. The entire book is about the harm done by introduced species, damming rivers, overfishing, etc. It sucks that he is importing this harm elsewhere.

And to think people didn't bid on it at the last auction as they thought it was a book on how to catch fish on rod and reel in my state.

#4 Guest_mikez_*

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Posted 03 August 2014 - 03:33 PM

Well that's a bummer. I love flagfins, having just been introduced to them a few months ago. If it's any consolation, up here in New England, in a little window tank in my living room, a small school of flagfins is gettin' busy makin' a whole new population of flagfins for the future.

#5 Guest_Mysteryman_*

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Posted 11 August 2014 - 05:07 PM

I've been all over the country and then some over the past week and a half, and Little Green Sunnies are taking over everything! I don't get it. They're everywhere, and as you might expect, I'm not seeing much of anything else. I've seen a few darters, some starhead topminnows, some Gambusia, and little green sunnies. Seriously, this is depessing.
A few years ago, Todd came by and we found ~30 species in a half-dozen holes. I've hit about 50 places this week, and haven't found squat.
Well.. today I might have found some Bluenoses, but that's a topic for a separate post.

#6 Guest_mikez_*

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Posted 12 August 2014 - 06:18 PM

Coincidently, my 8 year old son just caught a bunch of greens in the Concord River in Ma. They are super abundant and clearly reproducing. The locals didn't know what they were and the asians call them "tiger" fish.
There are few records from Ma and they are not established elsewhere that I know of.
I'm thinking if taking my boy back there to collect a few specimens for Harvard. He thinks it'd be cool to have his name on a jar in the museum.

#7 Guest_Mysteryman_*

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Posted 14 August 2014 - 10:37 PM

Good luck. I hope you catch them all.

#8 Sean Phillips

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Posted 10 November 2014 - 07:20 AM

That's terrible man. I get it though, easily half the fish in my local lakes and the creek that connects them are stunted green sunfish. The only minnow I've ever found in that creek were creek chubs and never any darters of any species.
Sean Phillips - Pine Creek Watershed - Allegheny River Drainage

#9 Guest_Skipjack_*

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Posted 10 November 2014 - 08:21 PM


Well they should be native in your area Sean. So hating them is like the locals near me who hate every longnose gar.Often stabbing their bill into the bank and letting them die slowly. Of course they claim that they compete with better game fish. After recently tasting gar for the first time, I can't really argue that point, I'd probably rather eat glass, but they do belong there. You can't very well have a problem with something that is meant to be there. The specific creek you are speaking of may just be poor habitat for anything else. Sometimes that is how it is. I can drive over certain local streams, and not even bother to sample them. Just by the looks of them you know right away that they will have green sunfish, creek chubs, bullheads, and maybe a bluegill, bluntnose minnow, and white sucker here and there. Not always the fault of those darn green sunfish.

I do not think they are native to south Alabama though, so Mysteryman has a legit complaint. Are they introduced to south Alabama or expanding their range on their own? If they are doing it on their own is is because of human impact on the streams that is making better green sunfish habitat than Pternotropis habitat? Don't hate the player, hate the game.

#10 Sean Phillips

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Posted 11 November 2014 - 11:29 AM

Matt, by no means do I mean I hate the green sunfish and when I catch them I always put them back, they're one of my very favorite fish. All that I meant is that the state is managing the park/lake poorly. They stocked far to many sunfish with not enough predators and thus there's a stunted population of them so really I'm mad at the PFBC, for once they didn't stock enough bass. Whereas the population in my other local creek is great, there's not to many, they're growing big, and there's not enough to impact other species. In fact that's where I got my female green from.
Sean Phillips - Pine Creek Watershed - Allegheny River Drainage

#11 Guest_Skipjack_*

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Posted 11 November 2014 - 12:07 PM

I know what you mean, and I don't expect that you are mercilessly killing green sunfish. People just seem to love to hate these tough, opportunistic fish. The problems associated with green sunfish are usually a result of human mismanagement.




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