19 replies to this topic

[Josh Blaylock]

Here's a recap of the native fish weekend I put together here in KY.

 

Friday: - 7/15

 

The group assembled in Somerset KY around 2pm.  Myself & Matt DLV met with Rolf, his son, Frank (from NC), and Mike Toole from Texas.  We had a smaller group than what we would have on Sat/Sun so I made a quick change to the plan and before visiting Buck Creek, we stopped at a smaller trib to see something special.

 

The newly described Buck Darter, Etheostoma nebra  

This species was once known throughout the entire Buck system, but is now confined to 2 tributaries to Buck Creek. We caught 3-4 of these at this location, and saw a few more.  Because of their habitat, they were a little easier to sight than to net.  All of there were returned.

 

 

The Habitat:

 

 

 

 

From here, we moved to Buck Creek.

Buck was up a little, but stil workable.

 

 

Rolf was excited over this one:

 

 

 

We really lacked on fish photos.  Notable Species here were

Bloodfin Darter, Bluebreast Darter, Spangled Darter, Banded Darter, Rainbow Darter, Greenside, Fantail.

Longear Sunfish, Hog Sucker

We caught a ton of shiners here too: Whitetail, Spotfin, Silver, Tennessee, and more.

 

 

After Buck Creek, we moved to a location on Fishing Creek.

At this time, I don't have photos from here.  I'm trying to see if Mike Toole has any.

 

But, we caught Redline Darters and Eastrim Darters here, along with several shiner species

[Josh Blaylock]

Saturday 7-16:

 

Matt & I were joined Saturday morning by Jared Burson.  We met the group in Somerset, which included 2 more people from NC.  From Somerset we traveled to Russell Creek near Columbia KY.  The water here was up, but workable.

 

 

We were also joined by John Belcik from Chicago, a student doing work on Rainbow/Orangethroat.

 

Though the water was up, it was still productive.  Here we caught a couple state listed species.

 

Longhead Darter, Percina macrocephala:

 

 

 

We also caught a couple Spotted Darters, Etheostoma maculatum.

This guy was hard to photo as he was super dark.

 

 

We also caught a juvenile Stargazing Minnow here, which is a state special concern.

 

This guy.....he thought there was  fish in there..

 

 

Our next location was a washout due to extremely high water so we moved to Pittman Creek, a trib to the Green River.

 

 

 

This location had typical Green River Species:  

Orangefin Darter, Kentucky Darter, Banded, Rainbow, Greenside, 

Streamline Chub, Spotfin Shiner, Scarlet Shiner, Longear Sunfish, 

 

We added another location here on the upper Green River, same place we went to on the KY Convention.  At this stop we added 2 Stargazing Minnows and Elegant Madtoms to the list.

 

After this, a few of us we to the headwaters of the Green.  We caught a few Headwater Darters and a couple Teardrop Darters.  This is also the location that our youngest collector took a bad spill.

[Josh Blaylock]

Sunday 7-17:

 

The group met in Richmond KY and we were joined by Art Parola from Louisvile.  We traveled to Wolfpen Creek in the Red River Gorge, part of the Kentucky Drainage.

 

Wolfpen:

 

 

Mike Toole, perhaps thinking about hurdling this one..

 

 

 

We caught 3 Redside Dace here and hundreds of Southern Red-Belly Dace.  A few years ago a group at this location caught a bunch of Redside x SRBD hybrids, none were caught this time.  Near the mouth of this creek we caught a few Frecklebelly Darters and a Lamprey

 

 

 

Art did a bit of snorkeling here and came up with this nice shot.

 

From where we parked at Wolfpen, it's just a short walk down the creek to the Red River.

 

 

Here we caught many Variegate Darters, Banded Darters, and Emerald Darters, along with a Longnose Gar and many shiners.

 

And Jared finally found a friend:

 

 

 

 

My original intent was to take a crazy amount of photos and especially fish photos.  However, when you're leading a group, your seining and IDing and etc...  I wanted to do a better job with photos, but I feel like we all had a great time and got to see a ton of fish.  We weather was amazing, except for the high water in the Green River.

 

I was very encouraged by this outing and the people from all over that showed up and wanted to see the fish.  We had 2 from Ohio, 5 from NC, 1 from IL, and 2 from TX, and myself...that's 5 states coming together to enjoy native fish in KY.  I think I'm going to make this a yearly event.  I'd like to pick one weekend (opposite of the convention) and go to different drainages and locations each year.

 

 

All Photos can be found here:  https://goo.gl/photo...2a1ndSkrYeERJS9

[Casper]

That is a nice Trip Report.

[Doug_Dame]

Agree with Casper on a nice Trip Report, and also that you absolutely SHOULD make it an annual event. 

 

Really impressed with how far your participants came from. 

 

Says a lot about your reputation as a host.  

 

(Or maybe it's all about the fish.)

[Matt DeLaVega]

He is a good host. Gosh that was hard. Not used to paying Josh compliments.

 

It was a good time for sure.

[Chasmodes]

Awesome!  Looks like everyone had a blast, except for maybe the lost fish and the spill...

[gobucksjb]

Doug - it is definitely all because of the fish........

 

No just kidding, Josh was an awesome host and did a great job of putting the collection weekend together.  It would really be great to have this as an annual event.

[dsuperman]

Nice report, such nice fish diversity. Thanks for sharing.

[DSmith]

great report. thanks!
What kind of tank do you use to take photos in?  (any chance you can buy them online?)

I'm having trouble finding anything in my neck of the woods.

thanks!

[Josh Blaylock]

great report. thanks!
What kind of tank do you use to take photos in?  (any chance you can buy them online?)

I'm having trouble finding anything in my neck of the woods.

thanks!

 

Custom made by NANFA member Uland Thomas

 

Here's a better shot of it:

[MtFallsTodd]

Way cool trip report, thanks for sharing.

[DSmith]

Any chance Uland Thomas can share his photo-tank building secrets??

[mattknepley]

Sweet, Josh! Sorry to have missed out on this one, too. I was thinking about you guys when we passed by your hometown a couple days ago on our way home from Michigan. Some day I'll actually be able to stop IN your hometown. Looks like a great trip, really enjoy the report! Please do make this an annual event! I mean, if it made DLV say sumpin' nice about you, it must've been special!

[mattknepley]

Any chance Uland Thomas can share his photo-tank building secrets??

There are a couple phototank build threads on here. Try searching for them. Uland and Michael Wolfe have both contributed ideas on creating them. I haven't seen Uland's at work, but his results speak for themselves. I have been in the field with Michael while he used his, and he gets some nice results with a pretty sturdy design.

[Michael Wolfe]

Any chance Uland Thomas can share his photo-tank building secrets??

Uland did share his build secrets at the Kentucky convention in a workshop environment where participants got to build their own. Not sure if that was captured in writing or web.

[Isaac Szabo]

Looks like it was a lot of fun. I'm glad it was a success. Good job. Hopefully I can make it next year.

[Josh Blaylock]

Looks like it was a lot of fun. I'm glad it was a success. Good job. Hopefully I can make it next year.

 

I hope so too.  I have a whole list of new locations for next year.  I may do it in the fall, depending on when exactly the NANFA Convention is.

[Matt DeLaVega]

 

I hope so too.  I have a whole list of new locations for next year.  I may do it in the fall, depending on when exactly the NANFA Convention is.

Early June convention.

[Josh Blaylock]

Early June convention.

 

 

So, with a June convention, I may do a late summer/early fall KY event.