Last week I traveled to the Southeastern Fishes Council annual meeting in Gainesville FL. I left on Tuesday from Ohio and got to southeern SC by that evening. The meeting did not start until Thurs so this allowed for some time to make a couple stops and spend some time collecting on Wens. I spent some time in the Santa Fe River basin and collected some Elassoma gilberti and Etheostoma edwini for my tanks and tried to fish for Micropterus notius but failed to capture any.
I went to the meeting Thurs and Fri which was very good as usual with lots of interesting talks on the conservation and study of our North American fishes with an emphasis on species of the SE US. I particularly enjoyed the 3 consecutive talks on the Blackbanded Sunfish (one of my favorites) and the one on the work to restore additional populations of the Robust Redhorse.
After the last talk Friday and saying good bye to new and old friends I made plans to head north on a more western route than what I had come to FL on. As a fisherman I was interested in seeing one of the Micropterus species that was described in 2013 when the Redeye Bass group was split into 5 species and one unsubscribed form. I have in the past caught actual M. coosae and the un-described "Bantram's Bass" from the Savannah River basin. So I looked up the type locality of the new Chattahoochee Bass M. chattahoochae which was the species most on my way home. I drove close to 4 hours Friday night to get me close to the area I wanted to fish and bought my GA fishing license on-line Friday night from my hotel.
Saturday morning I got up and did some more driving and got to the site around noon. I am still kicking myself for not taking a photo of the site before I left but I would described it as a nice looking small stream with well developed pools and riffles. I tried fishing with lures for about 45 minutes or so but had no luck. I decided to do a little seining and capture some live bait in the process. I captured the following species...
Bluefin Stoneroller Campostoma pauciradii
Longnose Shiner Notropis longirostris
Highscale Shiner Notropis hysilepis
Alabama Hog Sucker Hypentelium etowanum
Southern Studfish Fundulus stellifer
Bluegill Sunfish Lepomis macrochirus
Redbreast Sunfish Lepomis auritus
Blackspotted Sunfish Lepomis punctatus
Blackbanded Darter Percina nigrofasiata
I kept a few of these small fish in a bucket and tried them as bait in a deeper pool and almost immediately got a bite. After a short fight I landed a small largemouth bass. I was a little disappointed at catching such a common species. Quickly released it and tried again. The second fish was what I came for a very nice looking Micropterus chattahoochae! I carefully unhooked it and put it in a bucket until I could set up my photo tank. I went on to catch, or I guess almost catch one more Chattahoochee Bass (fell off my line as I lifted it out of the water) out of the pool and a couple redbreast sunfish. I'm sure I could have caught more had I walked up or down stream to some other pools but I had a long drive ahead of me and wanted to be sure I got a good photo of my targeted species before heading home. So I took the below photo and released all my extra bait back to where they came from before leaving the site.
It was great to see a few new species to me and then continue on my long drive back north which came to an end at home in central Ohio around 1am!