Date: September 12, 2007
Location: DuPage River in Shorewood, IL. At the lowhead dam upstream of SR 52.
Water Level: Normal for this time of year. Depth sampled ranged from a shallow riffle below the dam to areas of 5’ deep or more underneath two of the bridges.
Water Quality: Surprisingly clear with good flow. Some siltation on the cobble. Lots of enrichment apparent by the abundant macrophytes. This area has tons of vegetation. It made up 90% of the available cover.
Water Temp.: 18.5*C
Substrate: Cobble and some large rocks. Many macrophytes, including plenty of Valsineria. The mats of dislodged plants created overhead shelter near the shoreline and under the bridges which became ideal fish habitat.
Collected:
Common Carp (Cyprinus carpio) – unfortunately there were lots of really big carp here. They could be seem swimming near the vegetation mats. Also, if there was a break in the weed beds, large carp could be seen swimming with Shorthead Redhorse.
Hornyhead Chub (Nocomis biguttatus) – a few large ones were caught. They could be seen swimming around near the gravel riffles.
Central Stoneroller Minnow (Campostoma anomalum pullum) – only one was caught, but there were probably plentiful on the difficult to sample riffle area here.
White Sucker (Catostomus commersonii commersonii)
- this river was a little large to still be seeing White Sucker, as opposed to the other sucker species found in this river.
Shorthead Redhorse (Moxostoma macrolepidotum) – a few were found near the areas where there was a break in the extensive weed beds.
Northern Hogsucker (Hypentelium nigricans)
– one large one was found near a group of large Smallmouth Bass. The spot that the Hogsucker was in was under a bridge where there were no weed beds. It is probably difficult for a Hogsucker to root around for food in those massive weed beds.
Channel Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus)
- a few large ones were caught just downstream of the dam underneath the bridge. They were under the large weed mats that were floating there. There were quite a few very large fish underneath that bridge. A few were also caught that were found buried in the thick vegetation in the middle of the river.
Flathead Catfish (Pylodictus olivaris)
- one large one was found alongside large Channel Catfish under the bridge right below the dam. Right under that bridge would be a good place to fish for a variety of gamefish.
Stonecat Madtom (Noturus flavus) – a few were collected in the thick vegetation in areas where the current was at its highest velocity. They were large ones too. Averaging nearly 5”.
Tadpole Madtom (Noturus gyrinus) – some small ones were found near the shoreline. The banks were grass lined and the Tadpole Madtom likes to bury itself in this type of cover. These fish avoided the current.
Blackstipe Topminnow (Fundulus notatus) – only one was collected here. The current below the dam was almost too fast to find many topminnows.
Black Crappie (Pomoxis nigromaculatus)
Rock Bass (Ambloplites rupestris) – lots of very large Rock Bass were collected here. Everywhere that there was any sort of habitat (i.e. weeds, floating vegetation mats, rocks) there were large Rock Bass.
Northern Largemouth Bass (Micropterus salmoides salmoides)
- only a few were caught. This one pictured was the largest of them. This was more of a Smallmouth Bass area on the river than a Largemouth area.
Northern Smallmouth Bass (Micropterus dolomieu dolomieu)
- we found lots of very big Smallmouth Bass here. We also found lots of young of year Smallmouth Bass. Curiously, we didn’t find any year 1 or 2 Smallmouth Bass. There could be a high amount of cannibalism here. There certainly weren’t lots of forage fish (cyprinids). This could be the case in this part of the river. The largest bass were found underneath the floating vegetation mats. This big one pictured was found near the only N. Hogsucker.
Bluegill Sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus macrochirus)
Green Sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus)
Northern Longear Sunfish (Lepomis megalotis peltastes) – only a few were found.
Redear Sunfish (Lepomis microlophus) – only one was collected of these. There was a very good variety of sunfish here. This was my first time seeing a Redear Sunfish.
Hybrid Sunfish (Lepomis hybrid)
Banded Darter (Etheostoma zonale) – only one was caught on the riffle right below the dam. This is an example of how ineffective the method of sampling is for riffle dwelling fish. Often times when Banded Darters are present, they are present in large numbers.

Notes: Electrofished via a boat. This place looks like a great place to launch a canoe and fish underneath the bridges. There was a definite lack of cyprinids here which is odd because most of the fish looked to be well fed. I’m sure that the plants played host to numerous aquatic insects which the fish are feeding on though.

Notes: There was a definite lack of cyprinids here which is odd because most of the fish looked to be well fed. I’m sure that the plants played host to numerous aquatic insects which the fish are feeding on though.

This is what's known as a top-down effect. You're seeing "cyprinids"... They're swimming around as bass and catfish.

Ever think bass played a role in the abundances of bugs?

Or their absence playing a role in the abundance of phytoplankton?

Predators can make some crystal clear water by eating all the cyprinids that were eating the zooplankton, which are now eating all the phytoplankton.

There's a couple classic papers about this. I can round them up if people are interested.

That is a goregous smallie. Great thread Nate

Todd

This is what's known as a top-down effect. You're seeing "cyprinids"... They're swimming around as bass and catfish.

Ever think bass played a role in the abundances of bugs?

Or their absence playing a role in the abundance of phytoplankton?

Predators can make some crystal clear water by eating all the cyprinids that were eating the zooplankton, which are now eating all the phytoplankton.

There's a couple classic papers about this. I can round them up if people are interested.

That is a goregous smallie. Great thread Nate

Todd

I am quite interested in those papers. That smallie came with the background of surburban Chicagoland. As you'll see in the upcoming sites, this river is LOADED with really big Smallmouth.

I am quite interested in those papers.

This isn't the "Classic Paper" from 1986 but it's a very good synopsis of the methods and responses.

 Trophic_Cascades__Nutrients__and_Lake_Productivity_Whole_Lake_Experiments.pdf   762.64KB   54 downloads

I think you all will find it very interesting.

Todd

Date: September 13, 2007
Location: DuPage River in Crystal Lawns, IL. At Riverside Parkway canoe launch on W. Frontage Rd., just off Caton Farm Rd.
Water Level: Slightly above normal levels for this time of year. Average depth of the river was 0.7m. Overall pretty shallow.
Water Quality: Slightly turbid. A little more turbid than the area that was sampled on the DuPage River the previous day. There was lots of enrichment here as well.
Water Temp.: 20.6*C
Substrate: Some riffles present with small cobble and some larger rocks. Valsineria dominated the habitat. There were stretches of exposed bedrock that had large schools of Quillback and Shorthead Redhorse. Some fallen trees provided cover for large fish and sunfish. Brian got some pictures of me in action here…



Collected:
Common Carp (Cyprinus carpio) – lots of big ones.
Bluntnose Minnow (Pimephales notatus) – only a few here. This river system is showing us only a few species of minnows. The few species that we are finding, we are finding in low numbers.
White Sucker (Catostomus commersonii commersonii)
– a few large ones were caught here. A river this size should be hosting different sucker species, such as Silver Redhorse or Shorthead Redhorse. We did see Shorthead Redhorse on the bedrock flats, but weren’t able to sample any.
Northern Hogsucker (Hypentelium nigricans)
– only one. They don’t seem to be very common in this main stretch of the river. There is so much enrichment that very little of the cobble bottom is exposed. This doesn’t bode well for the feeding habits of the Northern Hogsucker.
Channel Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus)
– a few large specimens were located in the thick vegetation on the bottom of the river. We could have caught many more, but they would become entangled in the plants and become cumbersome to remove. Almost all of the Channel Catfish here had either parasites or eroded barbs on their chin.
Yellow Bullhead (Ameiurus natalis)
– a few were collected near some of the fallen trees along the shoreline. The yellow barbels under the chin are one of the easiest ways to ID a Yellow Bullhead.
Stonecat Madtom (Noturus flavus)
– a few were found buried in the plants, just like the Channel Catfish.
Blackstripe Topminnow (Fundulus notatus)
Rock Bass (Ambloplites rupestris) – lots of very big Rock Bass here. The DuPage River has a very large and healthy Rock Bass population.
Black Crappie (Pomoxis nigromaculatus) – only a few were here. They were out of the main channel. They would regularly be found near the fallen trees near deep holes by the shoreline.
Northern Smallmouth Bass (Micropterus dolomieu dolomieu)
– there were lots of Smallmouth Bass taken in this 500 m stretch. We easily had 80+ Smallmouth. Some of them were pretty large, as shown in the picture.
Northern Largemouth Bass (Micropterus salmoides salmoides) – only a few. They weren’t nearly the size of the Smallmouth Bass in this river.
Green Sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus) – lots of all year classes.
Bluegill Sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus macrochirus) – lots of all year classes.
Redear Sunfish (Lepomis microlophus) – only two small ones.
Northern Longear Sunfish (Lepomis megalotis peltastes) – only a few here (I've got too many pics in this post, so I'll post it in a reply below this one.)
Hybrid Sunfish (Lepomis hybrid)
[b]Johnny Darter (Etheostoma nigrum) – only one was caught. These were the most abundant darter in this stretch of the river. We didn’t see any suitable habitat for the other darters found in this region of the state.

Notes: Electroshocked via a boat. A 500m stretch was sampled. As noted earlier, we did see Quillback species and Shorthead Redhorse, but weren’t able to catch any. This spot had a lack of diversity as far as minnow species, but had many sunfish species. Also, there were no Hornyhead Chub here, they seem to be abundant where the water is a little clearer and the substrate is a little less silted over in this river.

- this is the N. Longear Sunfish from the above site...too many pictures for that one.

Very cool thread!
You guys must know all the best fishin spots!

Nice to see other people not using the cage up front

but no gloves in a picture...that is just asking for a safety audit like from a funding agency...fiberglass handles or not.

Great bowfin...I've seen far too few of those for my liking.

Couple questions;
Do you guys, or anyone else [river watch type organisation] sample any of the water quality parameters such as total/fecal coliform, ammonia, nitrite/nitrate, total phosphorus?
You mentioned several treatment plants as possible contributors of water quality issues. The parameters above are the most likely pollutants coming from a treatment plant and would all have permitable limits. If the plants are indeed discharging pollutants in violation of their permits, they would be liable to hefty fines if the issues were not addressed. This comes down from federal EPA so lax state laws should not give them shelter.
Second questions is, do you see the same kind of health issues with the large midwater preditors like bass as you do in the bottom feeders?

I spent May - mid August working for the Ohio EPA where our entire day's work was spent on doing that exact kind of monitoring you're mentioning. I assume that Illinois has a similar monitoring program that keeps these things in check. For the OEPA we were targeting a specific watershed (this year was the Mohican River). We did monthly "ambient" sites which were sites that the OEPA has been monitoring once monthly for the last seven years or so. My guess would be that Illinois has "ambient" sites on the DuPage River that monitors its water parameters. Problem is, they might have each waste-water treatment have a set amount that it is allowed to discharge. That gets multiplied by the sheer number of discharge facilities on the river. It is more than most other rivers I can think of. It just seems that there is a higher amount of facilities discharging into this river, so the affects of the discharge seem to be much multiplied. We saw the most anomalies on Carp, Catfish, Bullheads, Redhorse, and suckers. Rock Bass typically had Black Spot Grub (parasite) and leeches on their bodies. Minnow species like Bluntnose Minnow, Spotfin Shiner, Steelcolor Shiner, Red Shiner, and Bullhead Minnow seemed to be susceptible to Black Spot Grub as well. We hardly noticed any anomalies on Bass, Pike, Walleye, and Panfish of all sorts.

I spent May - mid August working for the Ohio EPA where our entire day's work was spent on doing that exact kind of monitoring you're mentioning. I assume that Illinois has a similar monitoring program that keeps these things in check. For the OEPA we were targeting a specific watershed (this year was the Mohican River). We did monthly "ambient" sites which were sites that the OEPA has been monitoring once monthly for the last seven years or so. My guess would be that Illinois has "ambient" sites on the DuPage River that monitors its water parameters. Problem is, they might have each waste-water treatment have a set amount that it is allowed to discharge. That gets multiplied by the sheer number of discharge facilities on the river. It is more than most other rivers I can think of. It just seems that there is a higher amount of facilities discharging into this river, so the affects of the discharge seem to be much multiplied. We saw the most anomalies on Carp, Catfish, Bullheads, Redhorse, and suckers. Rock Bass typically had Black Spot Grub (parasite) and leeches on their bodies. Minnow species like Bluntnose Minnow, Spotfin Shiner, Steelcolor Shiner, Red Shiner, and Bullhead Minnow seemed to be susceptible to Black Spot Grub as well. We hardly noticed any anomalies on Bass, Pike, Walleye, and Panfish of all sorts.

There is a site I go to that is near a Waste Water Treatment Plant and I notice Blacknose Dace have the blackspot grub over 75% of their bodies on 99% of them sampled. Other species have at most 12 individual grubs, Is this from the WWTP or just a good area for the grubs?

Bluegill Sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus macrochirus) – we sampled over 100 of these in the 200m stretch.
Green Sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus) – lots of these were caught as well.
Orangespotted Sunfish (Lepomis humilis) – only a few of these were found.
Hybrid Sunfish (Lepomis hybrid) – the interesting thing about these hybrids is that they looked like they were Lepomis macrochirus macrochirus x Lepomis humilis. I have never seen this type of hybrid before. Brian Zimmerman took a picture of this type of hybrid at the Scioto River in south central Ohio. This is how the fish that we caught here looked.

oooo that's an awesome hybrid shot. Definitely an orangespot x bluegill or vise versa. Had to hit the photo album for this one, but orangespots do have the blue vermiculation on the cheek. I've never seen one quite like that before.

There is a site I go to that is near a Waste Water Treatment Plant and I notice Blacknose Dace have the blackspot grub over 75% of their bodies on 99% of them sampled. Other species have at most 12 individual grubs, Is this from the WWTP or just a good area for the grubs?

The grub [trematode I believe] that causes black spot requires a snail for one stage of its life cycle. Snails are often unusually abundant in nutrient rich, algae laden waters. It's entirely possible that nutrients from the WWTP has contributed to making the area good snail breeding and thus grub breeding habitat.
Having said that, blacknose dace are particularly prone to blackspot in streams in which slow moving pools [snail habitat] are isolated during low water and the dace become confined in large numbers in close quarters.
Such a stream that recieved wastewater effluent would be a double blackspot whammy.

The grub [trematode I believe] that causes black spot requires a snail for one stage of its life cycle. Snails are often unusually abundant in nutrient rich, algae laden waters. It's entirely possible that nutrients from the WWTP has contributed to making the area good snail breeding and thus grub breeding habitat.
Having said that, blacknose dace are particularly prone to blackspot in streams in which slow moving pools [snail habitat] are isolated during low water and the dace become confined in large numbers in close quarters.
Such a stream that recieved wastewater effluent would be a double blackspot whammy.

Yeah, I figured it was something similar. The funny thing is some fish there show no sign of the grubs.

Date: September 14, 2007
Location: DuPage River just north of Plainfield, IL. Start at the 135th St. bridge.
Water Level: A little above normal summer levels. The deepest area was directly downstream of the bridge. It was 1.2m there. Otherwise the depth was a consistent 0.6-0.7m.
Water Quality: Even more turbid than the other sites on the DuPage so far. Lots of enrichment and aquatic vegetation.
Water Temp.: 19.3*C
Substrate: The area sampled was all a large run with cobble, sand, and silt on the bottom. There was abundant macrophytes and lots of vegetation mats.
Collected:
Common Carp (Cyprinus carpio) – lots of large ones.
Golden Shiner (Notemigonus crysoleucas)
Creek Chub (Semotilus atromaculatus) – a few smaller ones.
Central Stoneroller Minnow (Campostoma anomalum pullum)
Spotfin Shiner (Cyprinella spiloptera) – lots were found here. This is the 1st place on the DuPage main stem that we’ve encountered lots of cyprinids.
Bluntnose Minnow (Pimephales notatus) – there were also very high numbers of these here. There was also a noticeable decrease in the abundance of large Smallmouth Bass here.
Fathead Minnow (Pimephales promelas)
Northern Quillback (Carpiodes cyprinus cyprinus)
– a few large ones were found alongside the adult White Sucker and large Shorthead Redhorse. The scale pattern on the fish in the first picture shows that this fish has whorled scales. This is one of the anomalies we were looking for in the fish. Almost all of the Northern Quillback here had whorled scales.
White Sucker (Catostomus commersonii commersonii) – these were more abundant here than at any other DuPage River site so far. There were lots of adult ones found in the main channel of the river.
Shorthead Redhorse (Moxostoma macrolepidotum)
– a few pretty large ones were taken here alongside large Quillback and White Sucker. We’ve seen these at most spots in the main stem of the DuPage. We haven’t seen any Golden, Black, or Silver Redhorse that are common to a lot of rivers in Illinois.
Channel Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus)
Yellow Bullhead (Ameiurus natalis)
Tadpole Madtom (Noturus gyrinus)
Blackstripe Topminnow (Fundulus notatus) – tons were found along the grass-lined shoreline.
Western Mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis)
Black Crappie (Pomoxis nigromaculatus) – only one.
White Crappie (Pomoxis annularis) – only one.
Rock Bass (Ambloplites rupestris)
– it seems that the entire main stem of the DuPage River is just loaded with huge Rock Bass, and in good numbers.
Northern Largemouth Bass (Micropterus salmoides salmoides)
– only a few. Including this one large one though.
Northern Smallmouth Bass (Micropterus dolomieu dolomieu)
– lots were found here, as with all the DuPage River sites, but there was a smaller number of large ones. We also finally noticed some minnow species were present. The water was also more turbid. (This plays well into the paper that Todd posted).
Green Sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus) – lots
Bluegill Sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus macrochirus) – very abundant.
Orangespotted Sunfish (Lepomis humilis) – only a few. Seems to be the trend when lots of other sunfish are present.
Northern Longear Sunfish (Lepomis megalotis peltastes)
– only a few of these.
Johnny Darter (Etheostoma nigrum) – found these near the shorelines along the grassy shorelines.

Notes: Electrofished via a boat. Many of the large suckers were taken over bedrock areas that were breaks in the weedbeds. All the large bass were found in the deepest spots in this stretch. Here’s a picture of Brian in action at this spot…

You said that carp x goldfish hybrids are bad.

They are actually good. For every hybrid, there is 1 less invasive fish out there. The hybrids are 100% sterile so that they won't spawn again.

Hey Nate - Not get too far off topic but what do you think causes the whorled scales?

You said that carp x goldfish hybrids are bad.

They are actually good. For every hybrid, there is 1 less invasive fish out there. The hybrids are 100% sterile so that they won't spawn again.

You're sure that they're sterile, much less 100% so? Not that it really matters with as many carp as there are.

Hey Nate - Not get too far off topic but what do you think causes the whorled scales?

I never got an exact explanation. When I asked I was told it had to do with elements in the water at the time when the fish is developing.

I never got an exact explanation. When I asked I was told it had to do with elements in the water at the time when the fish is developing.

Thanks Nate, it's really common among Carp in the St. Lawrence/Great Lakes and I've occassionally seen it on Smallmouth Buffalo in the Colorado River in Texas. Always wondered about it.

The contrast isn't really great but here's a pic of Buff that had some really wild scales, a buddy mine caught this one in Texas.