Hello everybody,
Back in late May 2016, I joined NANFA's Vice President, Brian Zimmerman, and one of his interns in the field for a day of capturing and photographing fishes in central Ohio. The purpose of our trip was to obtain photos to use in the update to The Fishes of Ohio book. We headed to a small headwater stream with hopes of capturing several of the region's minnow species in peak breeding condition. The three of us pulled a 4' x 8' seine through three or four pools and found southern redbelly dace (Chrosomus erythrogaster), redside dace (Clinostomus elongatus), striped shiner (Luxilus chrysocephalus), and others to be abundant and quite colorful! We selected a few of the more photogenic specimens for the photo tank and took photos streamside:
Shown above is Brian getting prepared to photograph a male southern redbelly dace. This method of taking fish portrait photographs is detailed in the NANFA publication, American Currents, and in various threads on this forum. I haven't yet had a chance to edit the photographs from this photo session, but I utilized this method during a different photo session and examples of the end results of that session are below:
Redspotted sunfish (Lepomis miniatus)
Flier (Centrarchus macropterus)
After wrapping up our photo session, I decided to take a short walk upstream and see if I could come across a group of spawning minnows. While seining earlier, we'd caught quite a few minnows, but I knew if I looked, I could find them actively spawning somewhere in this stream. After a short walk, I noticed a series of pits dug in some of the riffle areas in the stream. I quickly recognized these as spawning pits dug by creek chub (Semotilus atromaculatus). I picked out a pit in the middle of the stream and placed my Olympus Tough waterproof camera on the streambed and started recording video. Then I walked away from the stream and watched from the streamside brush. Within a matter of minutes, a spawning group of minnows made their way to the nest!
As seen in the video above, the creek chub was not actively building or defending the nest. Perhaps the chub made this nest earlier and has since abandoned the nest. Early in the video, female blacknose dace (Rhinichthys atratulus) can be seen mulling around in the nest. They appear to be foraging on eggs. In the foreground, a female rainbow darter (Etheostoma caeruleum) can also be seen hopping around doing the same. After about 20 seconds, a large group of minnows takes position over the chub nest. The fish with the copper/orange lateral stripe are male blacknose dace in breeding condition. They also appear to be actively foraging in the nest. The strikingly colored southern redbelly dace are the red and yellow fishes that steal the show. These fish lit up the bottom of the stream. Other fishes in the mix were central stoneroller and striped shiner. Although the fish don't appear to be actively spawning in this video, the males were in peak spawning condition and the females were ripe with eggs. I'm sure shortly after I left, they resumed their spawning activities.
I just though I'd share this video and story as a reminder of the beauty of our native fishes and as an example of the interesting behavior they display. Also, creek chub tend to be an overlooked, underappreciated native fish. This video helps demonstrate their value as underwater architects that provide important spawning areas for many stream fishes. As I make time to edit the photos from that day, I'll add them below.
Enjoy,
-Nate
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