The Coosa is closed for collection? I'm not even sure where you'd go to collect in the Coosa since most of it's impounded, and I usually avoid water more than about 5 feet deep anyway. The Sipsey in the Wilderness area is closed to most collecting, but below the Wilderness I hadn't heard of any restrictions. There's not a big stretch of the river before you hit "Lake Smith" anyway, the local redneck riviera.

Watersheds, Bruce. Watersheds.

You're talking to someone who's very literal minded about collecting in mainstem rivers of late, since I finally found a spot in the Tallapoosa that wasn't affected by downstream impoundments (but had other obvious problems). I'd be excited to find the same thing on the Coosa (the "river of death" because of blocked movements leading to extirpations) but of course that's a utopian fantasy at the moment. I think we've all forgotten how important these rivers once were for fish movements, both larger fishes like blue suckers and alabama shad and also smaller ones like stippled studfish. But anyway, within your meaning, the Coosa is such a large area it's hard to imagine direct legal restriction on collecting; many of the tributaries are messed up enough so that you might not want to, of course. Larger tribs like Hatchet and Choccolocco creeks have coliform problems, while an even larger trib like the Little River is interesting precisely because it has been made into a federal protectorate.

Alabama needs protection from the CAFOs, the big animal feeding operations that are the primary source both of bacterial pollution and also the development of drug-resistant strains of bacteria due to the massive overuse of prophylactic antibiotics. The corporate hog and chicken farmers aren't about to stop acting crazy without heavy pressure that's nowhere in sight, so we have to be resigned to massively polluted groundwater and runoff in the near future. Hooray!

Thanks, guys. I'll have to check out Junior's; it sounds like my kind of place!

CAFO's are a real sore spot for me, too. There's just nothing good about them; they wouldn't even produce meat more cheaply than traditional farms if they were forced to behave responsibly.

So, the whole Coosa drainage would be cut off for collecting? Would that just cover recreational and commercial fishing too? That seems unlikely to go over well with Alabama taxpayers.

No idea. I'm going to guess no, that you'll still be able to collect "bait", and that's the loophole. But I'm also going to guess that you're going to see a list of species you can be fined for collecting.

What I do know is that aquarists from a certain public aquarium wanted to go down to Bammy to get some fishes, their permit was not fulfilled, and they were told the Coosa and Cahaba (I think I said Sipsey before) were closed for collection right now.

Todd

No idea. I'm going to guess no, that you'll still be able to collect "bait", and that's the loophole. But I'm also going to guess that you're going to see a list of species you can be fined for collecting.

What I do know is that aquarists from a certain public aquarium wanted to go down to Bammy to get some fishes, their permit was not fulfilled, and they were told the Coosa and Cahaba (I think I said Sipsey before) were closed for collection right now.

Todd

Todd, this is funny, since in Alabama there is no real enforcement of most laws except for no beer-to-go sales on Sunday in all but three counties. Seriously, the state just doesn't have the resources for this kind of exercise because tax rates are absurdly low. I'm a law-abiding person and all that, but on most natural resource related issues the state is some bark and no bite (OK, don't try deer-jacking out of season). This is different on federal protectorates like the National Forests and Little River canyon. The sad thing is that the public aquarium people you mention above could just buy fishing licenses, discretely collect some fish they're interested in, leave the state, and nothing would happen. And of course you didn't hear this from me, here on a public forum.

I tend to agree with bruce on all that.
keep it simple.

I agree too. I've never bothered with collecting permits and I've talked every advisor into the value of not having to fill out a danged report when you were done. In fact, my mussel permit is such a hassle... The spreadsheet is 2.4 mb without any data in it with all the fricken macros! ...that sometimes I wonder if it's worth looking for the "hangers on" here in Ohio. That's just annoying.

But your boss, journal, etc may require you to have one instead of a fishin' lisence.

For these people to have been told "No" on non-Fed listed animals, is noteworthy.

That's all I'm sayin'. I ain't gonna fix what ain't broke for me

Todd

Well Nathan the Newt,
You have had plenty of time to tell us fish and turtle tales...
What bama critters and peoples did you encounter?

I've been meaning to go through 'Fishes of Alabama' and try to ID all the fish I saw, and just haven't done it yet. Once I've done that I'll post a trip report, but I'll go ahead and give you the gist now.

I went to four sites: DeSoto Falls, two sites on the mainstem of the Little River, and one small tributary of Little River. As far as fish go, I saw plenty of hogsuckers, longear and various other sunfish, Coosa and spotted bass, some kind of shiner (tricolor? Alabama? Like I said I haven't hit the books yet), mosquitofish (in the lake above DeSoto Falls), stonerollers, and small numbers of darters, redhorses, a single dead studfish.

I only saw two dead unionid shells, but Corbicula were abundant. I saw crayfish in the cascade area of DeSoto Falls and in the small trib, but none in the mainstem Little River. Snails were oddly absent. Aerial predators were much in evidence: damselflies, robber flies, and dragonflies (including several tremendous dragonhunters) were everywhere, as were a bunch of big bee-mimic flies, swallowtails, and buckeyes.

I saw a large emydid turtle in the splash pool below DeSoto Falls, but even with my long lens I couldn't get a positive ID on it; unfortunately there was no public access to the splash pool. That was as close as I came to finding Graptemys pulchra. Other herps seen included a green anole, lots of stripenecked musk turtles (one of the buggers bit part of my fingertip off when I was trying to take him to the bank for his portrait), bullfrogs, a black racer, and a northern watersnake which I found in mid-ingestion of a pickerel frog:



I was a little disappointed by the low diversity, considering it was a moderate-sized stream, with a protected watershed, in the Appalachians, in the Mobile drainage; four things that suggest high diversity to me. The fact that the riffles were bathwater warm may have had something to do with it; perhaps the smaller fishes were retreating into the hyporrheic zone, or up into little tribs? I dunno. The stream in which I've snorkeled most, Whiteoak Creek on the Western Highland Rim, is of similar size to Little River and would provide several times as many fish species, even in summertime.

As far as human encounters, I had only two of note. After I left Huntsville, I discovered that the bridge at Scottsboro was out for repairs, so I had to make a pretty long detour and it was rather late when I got to DeSoto State Park. I pulled into the lodge area and saw a sign telling me to call a certain number if I were arriving late to the campground. I called it; it went to a hotel registration desk. The clerk informed me that the state park campgrounds were closed for renovations. I was too tired to drive elsewhere, so I just laid out a couple of towels on top of my camper shell and went to sleep. A couple of hours later I was awakened by a park ranger shining a Maglight in my eyes and telling me I would have to sleep inside the vehicle. I complied and enjoyed a near-sleepless night trying to get comfortable in the driver's seat.

The second was in Fort Payne (Official Sock Capital of the World), where I stopped at a fast food joint before heading home. The young cashier noticed that my Bioblitz shirt said 'Ashland City, TN' on it, and she commented that she knew where that was. It turned out she was also from my hometown, and had just recently moved to Fort Payne.

So, that's about all there is to say about that. Sorry I didn't call you, Casper, but I realized when I was already down in AL that I hadn't transferred your number to my new phone.

Awesome Pic. Poor Frog.
MagLights in the eyes are never pleasant, and never to be rudely awakened with. I thought you had a camper top on your small truck?
I know there is not much diversity at and below the falls. One has to get down lower to the park in the valley for maximum diversity. Is it called the Little River Canyon Park i believe. That location is not to far before the river flows into Weiss Lake, i think it is named. That is a good access area if you can avoid the busy Mexican weekenders. They will feed you if you ask them with a little Espaniol.
I'm sure you saw plenty of Alabama Shiners. I'm overdue for a return there and if i had not been committed to another snorkeling trip i would have enjoyed getting a refresher experience.
Relating to the lack of apparent diversity, i was in the Conasauga yesterday and not 3 weeks ago it was full of Bronze Darters. Yesterday i only saw one. I agree in the wonder that some species likely head to the deeper, cooler water when the temps raise. Mysterious and i have seen that before with the Bronzes. To make up for the lack of Darters i was able to spear 5 Drum that are destined for Casper's Gaspergou, fish chowder, this weekend. I also saw some massive River Redhorses but they are my friends.
I remember plenty of S Studfish, giant Gar, Blackbanded Darters, Mobile Log Perch, Alabama Shiners in the Little River. Lots of different shiners. Its been awhile, i know we have a report on it somewhere. I think it was Bruce, Steve Ellis, Dave Nelly and myself.
I found it...
heres the link...
http://www.nanfa.org...tn/tn_jun00.htm
and another trip there...
http://www.nanfa.org...littleriver.htm

enjoy the reading and we all look forward to yours. That is a really neat shot newt.

Casper

I do have a camper shell on the truck- I was sleeping on top of this, because the bed itself is strongly ridged and too uncomfortable to sleep on without a thick pad. The two mainstem sites I visited were within the canyon; I'll show you on a map when I put up the trip report.

Cool trip reports. I wish I'd gotten to see some rainbow shiners.

I remember seeing lots of drum when I've snorkeled the Conasauga. In fact, I was a bit surprised not to see them here, since the stream seemed so similar to the Conasauga. I've never eaten drum; is there any trick to preparing them?

That is one of the coolest photos I've seen in a long time man.

Yeah, like Casper said, and I mentioned in my first response, you've got to get down on the alluvial plain before the lake to really maximize richness with any kind of abundance. There's just not a whole lot of carbon in the system upstream, and what biomass there is, is swimming as those predator species or crawling around in the gravel as insect larvae. That's what our mountain streams USED to look like before we cut down all the forests.

What you see in the Red River (and most places) is part Paradox of Enrichment caused by non-point source pollution and part Trophic Cascades caused by anthropogenic removal or habitat degredation of top level fish species. I don't know if you've covered any of that in your studies... Both are invaluable theoretical tools for observing trends in nature. I'd be glad to give a layman's explaination and some citations for further reference if there's an interest and I can find time before my conference next week.

For example... Do bass control phytoplankton abundance (green water vs clear water)? The answer might surprise you.

Todd

I'm passingly familiar with the concepts, though I'm not as well read on ecological mechanisms as I'd like to be. Still, my forays in the very similarly-structured Conasauga have revealed more evident diversity, and it has as well-protected a watershed as the Little. The mainstem site where I spent most of my time snorkeling revealed a single cyprinid, no darters at all, hogsuckers, and two species each of Lepomis and Micropterus. I expected at least a handful each of minnow and darter species. So, did I just miss them, or are they really not present in the canyon?

As to your question, I'm guessing that since bass primarily feed on minnows, which primarily feed on zooplankters, which primarily feed on phytoplankton, large bass populations will result in clear (or at least not green) water. Correct?

Oh, I forgot to add to the fish list above that I saw two individuals of what I believe were Ameiurus catus, though I didn't get a good enough look for positive ID. They were cruising near the bases of very large boulders in shallow sunlit water above bedrock; one was shadowed very closely by a juvenile bass about half its size.

The Conasauga is a different river than the Little; the Little is draining the top and sides of Lookout Mountain, which are depauperate for fish, and it's a steep gradient coming off of this low diversity area until, as Todd described it, you hit the plain just before the river hits the remnants of the Coosa (Lake Weiss).

And, for the trophic cascade question, if bass eat the shiners, that should allow more zooplankton to survive and eat phytoplankton, resulting in clearer water? Or are we setting up a situation where nutrients remain in the stream and it becomes more eutrophic, and greener? I guess it all depends.

Yeap, no bass, extra phyto eaters, where nutrified - green water for the very reason you both stated.

What I was getting more at the PRESENCE of bass in the few pools that he was looking at up there (and I'd bet the macroinverts were jammin').

I've viewed this other places as well. So long as there was a pool deep enough to support a bass, there'd be one... And not a whole lot else. I think that's some of what is going on in the upper part of the river.

But I also agree with Bruce's assertion that the Little and the Conasauga are two totally different systems.

In the Red River, it's more a situation of the paradox of enrichment where one biproduct are abnormally abundant individuals that are on a boom and crash cycle over time. More is not better. Although, I will admit, that more is certainly more fun to sample

Todd

OK, I think I get it now. But still- ONE cyprinid species in 200 yards of stream? I just can't get over it.

You're right on the bass; they were in every pool, as were sunfish. The minnows were sticking very strongly to the high-current areas. The suckers were in both habitats. I didn't spend too much time flipping rocks (not a lot of flippable rocks), but there was plenty of indirect evidence of aquatic bugs, in the form of flying adults and exuviae on the boulders.

I actually saw a number of bass that showed subdued pattern with large black blotches scattered all over. I believe someone mentioned earlier that this was symptomatic of a viral infection? It was in maybe 5% of the individuals seen.

I also noticed in one stretch of the mainstem abundant scat. It looked more or less like dog feces; squarish blobs about 1-1.5" in diameter in series of 4-8. It was pale gray and had brownish fibrous fragments in it. I broke apart a few of the pieces to see if I could identify the fragments; I believe there were some Corbicula shell pieces in there, but couldn't swear to it; otherwise it seemed to be an assortment of insect exoskeleton fragments. I mean these things were everywhere- in some of the pools I would say density was approaching one turd/m². Any ideas?

If anyone is wondering about the flora, it was fairly subdued as well. Justicia americana was the main emergent, but Pontaderia, Cephalanthus, and some kind of Polygonum were also present in a few spots. There were some interesting composites along the margins, as well as plenty of royal fern (one of my personal favorites). As far as submersed vegetation, there was a good bit of a heterophyllous Potamogeton species; otherwise the submersed flora was dominated by algae. The stonewort Nitella was abundant; various green, red, and brown algae were also present. One interesting species growing in the cascades between pools was a round, very tough, gelatinous, virulently green alga, about the diameter of a pencil eraser. I've never seen anything quite like it.

I also noticed in one stretch of the mainstem abundant scat. It looked more or less like dog feces; squarish blobs about 1-1.5" in diameter in series of 4-8. It was pale gray and had brownish fibrous fragments in it. I broke apart a few of the pieces to see if I could identify the fragments; I believe there were some Corbicula shell pieces in there, but couldn't swear to it; otherwise it seemed to be an assortment of insect exoskeleton fragments. I mean these things were everywhere- in some of the pools I would say density was approaching one turd/m². Any ideas?

Perhaps from an American mink? Were they that size or bigger?

Todd

I thought of mink, but they were awfully big. No doubt the water swelled 'em up a bit, but still... Mink are pretty narrow critters. I haven't seen mink scat, but these were much larger than coon scat, and I doubt mink scat is any larger than that of coons. None of the scat were much if any under 1" in diameter.

The poop you saw was probably muskrat, they're a (the?) primary consumer of mussels in general and Corbicula in general in local streams.

Coons eat a helluva lot of corbicula. Otter eat a helluva lot of corbicula. But remember he said "he thinks" he saw the shards. That doesn't lead me toward a positive ID of molluskovore

I wouldn't expect otter to be eating macroinverts, but hey, what do I know? How much of the casings were crayfish? They might have been otter.

Complete speculation on my part

Todd