Clang clang clang goes the gilt darter. Ding ding ding goes saddled.

Howdy folks,

Had a chance to do a little collecting over the weekend while we were visiting some folks. Guess this is the plus side to having nature geek friends... I talked them all into a walk among the glades and springs in metamorphic rocks at St. Francois State Park, about an 45 min south of St. Louis. Our walk was nice, I highly recommend the Mooner's Trail up the creek. I can't wait to get back there when its warm and do some botanizing.

Saw a nice series of fishes. Saddled darters were definately the stars of the show, got some mongo males. It was too cold for pictures (even hand shots) unfortunately. I didn't want their gills to freeze so we could see how pretty they were. Gilts were hard to come by in the Big River, I ended up running to Route 66 State Park on the Meramec proper on Monday to fix that issue. It's so weird where everything goes in the winter.

My waders froze on the way back to the car, which was pretty funny. Erika took a decent picture of it, maybe I'll load it later.

Anyway, some places to hit if ever out that way!

Todd

Big River - St. Francois State Park - 1/19/08
Todd Crail - 6' seine

largescale stoneroller - abund
steelcolor/spotfin - 10+
bleeding shiner - abund
lythrurus minnow - 1
ozark minnow - 30+
bluntnose minnow - 10+
gambusia - 5
blackspotted topminnow - 5-10
northern studfish - 1
brook silverside - 3
central longear sunfish - 10+
ozark bass - 10+
greenside darter - 20+
rainbow darter - 20+
fantail darter - 2
MO saddled darter - 20+ (monsters!)
banded darter - 10+
gilt darter - 3
mottled sculpin - 1 monster female