I took a spur of the moment trip to a little rill near my home. I always wanted to take a shot at it, so today I did. It empties into the Des Plaines river about a mile downstream from where I was sampling. I am pretty sure it dries up, or neary so, during the summer, so I did not hold out much hope. It runs pretty good when it rains. Today it was in between. I wound up catching quite a few fish, if not a lot of species.

The most common fish were brook stickleback. The males were very dark greeny-brown, almost black. Breeding colors, no doubt. The females were so egg-laden that I thought the first one I caught was a tadpole. When I realized it was a fish, I thought that it was diseased in some way. Only after I caught another did I realize that these were females full of eggs.

I also caught a lot of central mudminnows. These were very nicely colored (for mudminnows). I could have filled buckets with these guys.

I caught a couple of small (1") green sunfish.

I caught one 3+" cyprinid, which I cannot identify. One of those olive above, white below, with a single dark stripe minnows. Maybe a creek chub from the size?

There were some crustacean-type creatures, much like sowbugs to my untrained eye. But bigger than sowbugs, maybe 3/4". Not scuds (or what I have been calling scuds). I took some home to feed to my sunfish. They liked 'em.

The last thing of interest were crayfish. I caught maybe 10 or so, but none larger than 2.5" and they all had tiny claws.

All-in-all a pleasant way to spend an hour on Sunday morning.