Participants - Jeff, Grace and Charlie.

Mornin Nanfans. Jumped into urban Blacklick Creek a few weeks back with an intern at the corner of Broad St. and Reynoldsburg-New Albany, just N of Reynoldsburg (for you Columbus folks). Superficially, the creek doesn’t look half bad, if not a bit entrenched and plagued by the typical urban pestilence – trash, riparian exotics, shopping carts, etc.

Most of the cyprinids were found in a large scour hole near the Broad St. bridge. The riffles were just loaded with rainbows....very few greensides and sculpin. We also had a macroinvertebrate expert on hand (Grace), and she had a difficult time finding anything besides aquatic worms and the occasional heptageniidae mayfly. No trace of any unionids. I think this can be attributed to serious enrichment issues, which are apparent right when you are at ground level with the creek.

Species List, Jeff and Charlie, 8’ seine –

Creek Chub
Bluntnose Minnow
Rosyface shiner
Stoneroller Minnow
Silverjaw minnow
Northern Hog Sucker
Green sunfish
Rainbow darter (gravid)
Greenside darter
Johnny darter
Mottled sculpin

Jeff

If you found any sculpins that would say that this creek isn't totally messed up, there's hope...

If you found any sculpins that would say that this creek isn't totally messed up, there's hope...

ya, agreed. Plus the rosyface weren't a bad sign either....some of the fish tolerance studies I've seen classify them as intolerant.

J