"Share a story from your past that got you into native fish"

it's a two part story
1- were did all the crawfish go.
2-share a time frame from your past.

Share if you will what got you started in
the ways of the Outdoors and Captive Care.
for myself it was the
"The Lowly Crawfish And The Muddy Creek Gang"
A memory of days gone by.
other Boys were playing Baseball or Cowboys and Indians
but not our gang we had a fort by the local creek
were we made our club house
with a pond in the center
hand dug by the Muddy Creek Gang
In those days we had little concern for the value of Life.
One of the rules to be a gang member
Was to eat a live Crawfish
Plus you had to have a 5 gal Bucket
A Hand Made Net
A Red Ryder BB Gun
And Sling Shot hand made of course.
and no girls allowed.
Now on to the point of this thread.
In those days we would catch 4 or 5 different kinds of Crawfish some had small claws others
had robust claws for fighting some stayed small all year yet others got to almost 6" in size
now a days in the same area these creeks/streams have one maybe two kinds of crawfish
I wonder what has changed is it dirty water or maybe a more aggressive transplant.
this lowly crawfish set me on a path of the outdoor way of life
with out this little mudbug in my past I may have been a whole different person
so with this said I tip my hat to the lowly crawfish and its sacrifice
for this rite of passage in my past.
one of the lords stewards of the outdoors.
Just trying to keep his fish alive

Tony

Good story! And good idea for a thread!

I was always interested in things that lived in freshwater.
I had peanut butter jars of wrigglers, icecream containers with aquatic snails and worms and whatnot. Tadpoles and frogs briefly, for want of proper information on how to care for them.

When I was 10 I got my first goldfish. I had no idea and looked after them terribly (I realise now), but I loved them - I was moving up the food chain with my aquatic pets!)
The goldfish went when I went to uni.

A few years later my ex and I got goldfish again.
One day he called me up from the pet shop excitedly: "THEY'VE GOT NATIVE FISH, CAN WE GET SOME?!!!"
Knowing his inclination to passing whims that wound up in the bottom of a cupboard somewhere I insisted on having a look first. The goldfish went back to the pet shop about a month later so we could get more natives.
I was smitten and got more and more interested than him. Finding there was virtually no information specifically on keeping them, I started gleaning from scientific papers and getting to know all sorts of interested people. I started writing an article on keeping them, which turned into a book which I am in the final throes of editing.

And I am going back to uni this year to study Ecology, all thanks to these little brown fish...

First fish I ever kept was a Longnosed gar.. Caught it when I was 8 or 9 years old. It was the most unique fish I have ever seen and I've never seen a Longnosed like it again. I remember this fish like it was yesterday. This fish sparked a whole life for me.. I have never been Garless since and now these fish and other oddity natives are a major part of my life. When keeping the gar I also learned to love Bait... Silvery things became not just feeders or bait but pets as well. As I replaced live foods with prepared I learned more about each so called Bait/feeder fish and I just got more involved.

Dabbled in tropicals here and there but they never have interested me as much as those fish in my backyard. Guess I've always been more interested in the oddity's my country has then those from elsewhere. I like seeing the country looking for them and I just for some reason have a more substantial connection to them.

Native Non-game native fish are a passion and profession for me now and it all started with one toothy ganoid....

I've fished all my life, but my parents were never much into it. So, when I was very little, they would often leave me at one of several locations to fish for a few hours (two of the locations I have just started to harvest for sunfish for tanks.

I also had a science project when I was in 6th grade that involved aquarium kept largemouth bass fingerlings. I was feeding one group feeder comets, and the other group crappie minnows, and measuring for differences in growth between the two groups.

I kept Africans while I lived in Austin several years ago, and my boss got to talking to me about starting a tank middle of last year. He wanted me to start a marine tank, since that's what he keeps, but I got to thinking that a tank with sunfish in it would suit my interests better. While doing research, I found this site. Interestingly, after setting up my tank at home, my father came by to visit and asked me to set up a tank at his animal hospital. And after I set up the tank at his hospital, he's now asked me to put one up over at the city animal control. So it's turned into a little extra money for me, as well.

When I was young, my cousin and I would play in creeks and ditches right outside my house. We would build dams, holes, filter systems, etc... in the ditch behind my house and the larger creek across the road. We would often catch 'crawdads' and we'd catch minnows to put the ponded area behind the dams we'd build.

Around this time I got my first betta and goldfish (Rocky & Rambo). They lived for a bit until Ich killed them. I had relatives that kept guppies and other fish when I was young. I was always interested in fish.

Fastforward roungly 15 years and I've graduation college and live in an apartment that doesn't allow pets. I decided to get some fish to keep me company. I aquired a 10 gallon tank from a co-worker and stocked it with your average tropicals from the LFS. I've always been an avid fisherman. One day, I thought, why not get a tank and keep some smaller bass/crappie/sunfish.... Well, after much research I realized I'd need a pretty big tank for that. While doing this research, I stumbled across a photo of a Rainbow Darter...I was hooked..or netted I should say. I found all these photos of native fish right here in KY that colors would rival most tropicals.

Now, I've kinda come full circle as they say. I love, more than ever, to play in creeks.

Edited by jblaylock, 13 January 2009 - 11:36 AM.

Very nice to read someone else side on how it all got started

I got started in about the same way as most I guess. I lived in montreal my whole life (so far) but grew up every summer at our lake cottage 100 kilometers north of the city. I was always outside catching things and taking them back home. When I was about 13 I caught some very young pumpkinseeds and put them in our community fish tank at home, didn't know much about natives back then. When they killed a bunch of neons I had to put them back. A few years later I had gotten my first big tank and I wanted to recreate a piece of the lake with natives in it. My friends at first thought it was a waste of an aquarium untill they saw the set up and how cool the fish were. I had some pumpkins for about a year and had to get rid of them yet again as they were getting too big for the 45 gallon tank I had them in. I kept various dace and other natives off and on for the years following as well as some tropicals.
Even when I would go fishing, more often than not I put down the rod after a few minutes and grabbed the dip net to see what I could catch.
It took many years later and selling the cottage for me to decide to buy a 75 gallon tank to set up just for sunfish and i once again got pumpkinseeds but foolishly gave them to a friend who wanted them real bad for his pond this past summer. I always want to spread the word of how wonderful native fish can be so I gave them to him, but saved one small one for me. I asked to see if he wouldn't mind giving some back and he said no way he loved them too much.
I guess it's ok though because I can now try another type of sunnie and have yet another person hooked on natives! I have a few more friends who would like to keep natives as well.
I think the biggest draw to natives for me was recreating the feeling I got when swimming in the lake and watching all the fish swim around me, particularly the sunfish. I remember watching them tend their nests for hours as a child, and now I can do the same, not only as a hobbyist but as a starting biologist as well.
Don

When I was about eight years old I was wading around in the head waters of the Pocatalico river in West Virginia, we lived in a little house on the edge of the river, I saw little black wiggling things about a half inch long. I caught several with a mason jar and took them up to the house. My grandpa had several one gallon glass milk jugs. The old square kind, well not old then but old now, I put a tiny catfish in each one and later I got some anachris from a guy who kept fish and I put a sprig in each jug. I continued to catch tiny catfish and soon I have gallon jugs sitting all over the house with a fish in each one. My mom found an old ten gallon aquarium for sale and she bought for my birthday. It's been a steady decent into fishy madness every since.

My grandparents used to take my brother and me down to the little stream we called "Grandmother's Creek", but the maps call Dry Branch. We would have a picnic- saltines, pickles, smoked oysters, and Vienna sausages washed down with root beer or grape soda- on one of the brachiopod-pocked limestone slabs in the creek bed, then splash around in the water. Pa would entertain us with his vast stock of stories, jokes, and songs, while Ma would tell us the names of the wildflowers that were in bloom, or the birds in song. We'd poke around looking for arrowheads (I don't remember ever finding any) or "Indian money" (fossil crinoid stems). We would often end up finding some fruit or fungus for dessert, always with the admonition that we weren't to eat what we found in the woods unless a grownup told us it was okay.

I was more interested in the little wriggling things in the water; Ma would tell me what she could about them, but she was less well-read on these beasts than she was on fossils, birds, and plants. I learned about "crawdads", "snake doctors", "mollydarters", "horsehair snakes", "Devil's walking sticks", and "water dogs". I learned how to nab a crayfish behind his shoulders, how to pick up a little water snake so gently he wouldn't bite or flee, and how to shepherd a tiny fish or salamander larva into the palm of my hand.

Those weekend outings did a lot to set my course in life. My grandparents are gone now, but I'm still walking the path they showed me.

I work at a water treatment plant.

I'd see fish occasionally in the inlet screens. I took a few home, learned how to properly keep them and now they are like "my boys".

It's no surprise to many in these forums but they are so interesting and animated. I describe their behavior and people think I'm exaggerating, until they come over and see these critters for themselves.

I had no idea keeping fish could be so much fun.

My passion for fish and fishing and the outdoors is what started my hobby, I guess. Back when I was six, I tried to convince my parents to get me a fish tank for about three months (Notice my determination) and, after seemingly informing others of my pleas for a fish tank, I got one from my aunt, a ten gallon starter kit tank like the ones you see at Walmart. (Note: I know it is long, sorry!)

I freaked out. I quickly went out with my about thirty dollars of birthday cash and bough blue gravel, fake plants, and a crashed plane cave ornament. I and my parents knew from my aquarium books to let the tank cycle before adding fish, so I eagerly waited out my two weeks of letting the tank run, and went out to buy fish at, you guessed it, Walmart. I was enthralled with the livebearers, as i knew they were easy to keep, and I bought two sailfin mollies, one white and one black. I named them Godzillafin (A male with a big and pretty fin) and Blacke (I was six, so sue me). My brothers were there as well and wanted to get their own pets for the tank too, so my younger brothers got a wagfin platy whom they dubbed Orangeyblacker, and a red platy they named Big Red. My older brother decided on a Chinese algae eater named Fred. Original, eh? We put all these fish in the tank, and with in a week we had to hold toilet burial survices for Big Red and Godzillafin. Within a month, the algae eater succumbed, but the remaining livebearers pressed on. We changed their water, fed them on a written down schedule, and they soon were flourishing. Then both the platy and the molly gave gifts; babies. The little guys were able to hide away from their parents and were soon the same size. We now had five mollies (A balloon molly named Fatty, a normal black named Dick Tracey, a brown one named George, and a pretty sailfin named Godzillafin Jr.) and two platies (Orangieblacker and Orangeblacker Jr.). We lived in Winnemucca, Nevada at the time and there was this ditch next to our house that swelled to massive small river like glory during the summer, and local kids would scrabble about in the shallow water or fish or try and catch spadefoot toad tadpoles or small fish that flourished in the small river.

Mule deer and pronghorn antelope would be everywhere nearby, and coyotes and bobcats would come down all the time to drink or hunt for game like California quails or jackrabbits that roosted in the shade of the mesquite, willow and live oak near the water. I vaguely remember catching about a hundred toad tadpoles, putting them in our horse trough, and watch how within a week or so the toadlets would clamber out and leap away. I also remember Crunch. To this day I have no idea what Crunch was, some kind of minnow like a horse shiner of some sort I guess, but he was caught by some kid chasing tadpoles in the shallows. He knew I had a tank and asked if I wanted him. I said yes and ran home and put him in our tank, where he was quickly was found out by my parents when they came to feed the fish their evening meal, who warned about infection or disease from the ditch. Amazingly enough, Crunch kept livebearers fry to a minimum, by eating the youngsters up while leaving a choice few, which we gave to the LFS or to a friend of ours who wanted some platies or mollies for their own tanks.

Crunch then died for no reason about a year later. I was heartbroken beacause he so awesome, he loved his Tetra tropical flakes and Tetra Tubifex cubes, he ate anything catchable like waterboatmen and beetles from the horse troughs or creek, and was quite a cool little silver minnow. I grew up a little and realized I wanted to be more informed about tropical fish, so I became a freshwater tropical nut. I could recite facts on anything from tiger barbs to tilapia, and pretty soon began asking my parents for a bigger tank, which I was denied due to the fact I was eight, and while generally responsible towards my pets, they still had to change the fish's water and feed them at night. They were busy and said I should try out fish like goldfish. I did not want to, because I thought goldfish were stupid, but soon I saw the light and had a 20 gallon H in my room with three comet goldfish named Freddie, Jason and Splinter. They got to be about six inches when noticed spawning behaviors; Freddie was a Freddie and Splinter was a Splinter, but Jason turned into a Jessica. Unfortunately, they ate all their eggs every time they made them, the jerks. I also began to think about putting trout or bass in a tank, but I was set back due to tank size and the lack of knowledge in this department. My parents told me that most likely the wild fish wouldn't like being caged up and wouldn't adapt to fish food like Crunch did, so I simply accepted it.

This all changed when I went up to North Idaho for Christmas to my uncle's house when I was nine. My cousins had caught a smallmouth bass in a local lake as a fingerling while fishing with my uncle for pumpkinseeds and bullheads and had put him in their mother's 55 gallon fancy breeder guppy tank, were he quickly ate all the guppies and became their mother's bane and my cousin's delight as he grew to about a foot in length. They fed him wild bugs, crickets, earthworms, wild fish like baby sunfish, and feeder goldfish. I was amazed at the fish's behavior towards my cousin's, he would come dancing to the surface whenever somebody would walk by and wait to be fed by them, quickly and stunningly nailing the prey items like a leopard does to a gazelle. He had one tankmate, a little four inch long brown bullhead which my cousins had tossed in for food but the smallmouth wasn't interested in him, and they quickly realized how cool this fish was in his own right. He cruised the tank like a whiskered shark until a food item touched a whisker, then he would wickedly pounce on the hapless fish or worm with gusto and gobble them down.

I quickly began to realize that maybe this wasn't so hard to do, after all. I then proceeded to catch a small brook trout of about five inches from a Boise creek and kept him with the goldfish whe we moved to Meridian, Idaho. He was very pretty, like Indian maize or snakeskin, with blood red underneath and yellow worm-like marking over blue, making him my mom's favorite fish. He, dubbed Crazy Trout, ravenously headhunted for feeder guppies and wild water bugs and earthworms but refused the goldfish's diet of goldfish flakes and pellets, which was alright until I went to summer camp and my parents didn't know that fact. When I came into the car from my two weeks of camp my dad explained how Crazy Trout had died and how my gerbil Ruby Eyes died (My brother let the hapless rodent near our cats and they did the rest) and I got angry with them and cryed and shouted and was hopelessly in torment over the losses of my gerbil and trout. My parents were so guilty that looking back that my mom couldn't even talk to me for a week.

Anyways, to make a long ramble a little more short, I finally got yet another tank when we moced to North Idaho and decided to do an all native setup, and I was told about this site from a friend from Pond Boss. I was fascinated I wasn't the only one that did this, go figure. I had an old metal above ground swimming pool and decided to make it into a predator pond. I attached a filter I got from a friend, got some gravel, and went fishing in nearby Hayden Lake and my own ponds, and sticked the 600 gallon 'pond' with bullheads, pumpkinseeds, yellow perch, a Northern Pike, black crappies, and a Largemouth bass. They all got very tame and would get psyched up when I approached with food like goldfish and rosy reds. Unfortunately, the filter broke, and the crappies all died, the Northern ate the pseeds and perch all up, until it was him and the bass, because the bullheads went back into the natural ponds on our proptery from whence they first came.

Northern Pike was given to a friend who converted a former 1 acre koi pond into a pike and tiger muskie pond, and my friends say the three two foot tiger muskies have yet to be as personable towards him as my former Northern Pike, who is now two and a half feet long and chowing down on goldfish and whatever else they feed him. The leapt out of another friend's 200 gallon tank and his husky dog ate him, the moronic fish.

Great stories guys.

Catfish_hunter,

Was your fish Splinter named after Master Splinter from TMNT?

I guess this is sort of my past, like past few months. I want to share how this forum changed my perspective on natives.

Like a fair portion of people new to the Nanfa forum, I am a fisherman who was interested in keeping game fish for study. I am also an artist, love fish and my artistic career as of late has been solely dedicated to fish and fishing art. Initially I wanted to keep bass and walleye but after a little research it was yellow perch. I posted questions about keeping perch in a 30 gal and several forum members suggested darters or something else. My initial reaction was like "yeah right, whatever". So after I cycled my perch tank, I went to catch some yellars. No perch were there to be had where a week before they were everywhere. I did manage to get lots of sunfish which I let go but I did nab two tessellated darters dragging half a minnow trap through some weed beds. I thought, what the heck and before they knew it they were traveling 60mph in the Rattler back to my house.

As soon as I dumped them in the tank I knew why darters are so loved by native keepers. They bop around the tank like flying lizards and pop their heads up to watch me constantly. After that, I was hooked. I ended up putting a small 1" bluegill and a 1.5 " white crappie in with the darters. This was great but I was ADDICTED AND I NEEDED MORE!

I set up another 30 gal we had lying around the house as a stream type habitat. I wanted more darters but ended up with stuff that was just as cool. This tank is full with several black nose dace, a long nose dace, 2 spotfin shiners, some bluntnose minnows, a tiny margined madtom and a 4" northern hogsucker. I know what some of you are thinking, Hogsucker but he is headed for a very large tank I am setting up in my basement, probably 150 - 300 gal. He was way too cool, I couldn't resist.

Anyway I also have a 10 gal set up that is ready for some new stuff, maybe mud minnows or something. After I got that one running, a friend offered to give me a planted tropical setup she has lost interest in. When I pick that up I will have all ready have 4 tanks running...Oh the madness! I pour over my Peterson's guide and consider tank setups and collecting locations constantly. My mom lives in Myrtle beach and I plan on collecting everywhere I can legally from PA to SC. I never thought I would be so interested in keeping "bait" but my perspective has changed thanks to this forum. I find that watching my fish is extremely therapeutic and I have learned a great deal of fish behavior that I had never considered. One of the great things about this whole thing is when I start to make a majority of my income off of my art...NATIVE FISH KEEPING=RESEARCH=TAX WRITE-OFF!

bART

Catfish_hunter,

Was your fish Splinter named after Master Splinter from TMNT?

Yes, and he was won by me at one of those raffles at school, where you throw a pingpong ball into a jar and win a goldfish. Most kids shook their poor fish up until there were toilet fodder, but I kept my goldfish relatively calm until we got home. My littlest brother Quint named him Splinter. I was so proud he embraced the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles like I had, and Splinter was always such a cool guy to me and him, a giant mutant Norway rat that learned the art of Kung-Fu and taught it to mutated teenage turtles. I feel nostalgia creeping up, I'm going to go watch me some TMNT .

Trying to catch these little fish that I thought were yellow bullheads. Everytime I stalked one or got near it, I tried to swoop in with the net, it darted out of the way. I had no idea it was a rainbow darter. A video game for the ps1 called Reel Fishing also fueled my interest that summer. It made me want to keep 12 madtoms (I didn't know they were madtoms) in my tank, bought them from the bait store.

As a child I loved to see what was under rocks instead of fishing. My dad would always tell me to quit playing with the minnows.

Edited by factnfiction101, 24 January 2009 - 04:27 PM.

My dad would always tell me to quit playing with the minnows.

Oh I have to use that line on my native-fish-nut friends!

though they probably have more cause to use it on me....

Loving reading these stories, keep them coming!

When I was a kid, I loved to catch crawdads. There is a drainage ditch running through the fields at my parent's house. I wasn't supposed to play in it, something about it being polluted and dangerous, but that didn't slow me down much. It was too interesting to keep away from. I played in it a lot. When I had girlfriends over, we'd either be playing in the ditch or the hayloft at my grandmother's house. (Also forbidden.)

Every summer, we'd go down to Kentucky to visit family. In between riding around and visiting, I'd play in the crick. For some reason, I don't remember them trying to stop me from doing it. I was told to "watch for snakes" and that was it. It was great! Much better than the ditch. There were lots of slippery rocks to slide on and turn over for crayfish. The sun was warm and the water was cool. It was heaven for a tomboy like me.

Then, some years later, a friend in my local aquarium club told us he'd talked this "FarmerTodd" person into coming to a meeting. He was into native fish we were told. I thought to myself, "Native fish?" Wow! A big light bulb went off over my head and I was off to play in the crick again.

The farm I grew up on, and where I still live today, has a decent size creek that cuts right through the middle, augmented by a large spring that never has run dry, typically putting out in the 5-10k gallons per hour range. As a boy, I delighted in catching crawfish and chasing my sister. Also caught snakes, we had plenty: rat, hognose, water, garter, king, and rarely I could find one of the bright green tree snakes.

I started keeping tropicals at first. One day, my dad brought out an old seine that was buried in the back of the garage, and we went plowing around in the creek with it. I was amazed to see this brilliantly colored little fish come up - bright red and blue stripes. It was a rainbow darter, the creek is packed with them. That got me interested. I added fantail, the other darter in that creek, and a couple of banded sculpin, tons of them in the creek.

Later, I put up a salt water tank, and had fun with that, but shut it down after a major die off. Too expensive. So when I wanted a tank a couple of years ago, I thought about salt water. Don't think so, we lose power in the country on occasion and I'd lose them all. Then, I remembered the brilliantly colored darters, and decided to go native. Only this time, I can get out and look in different locations. That's when I learned that I'm right on the doorstep of a huge variety of darters. 13 species so far, more to find this spring.

Really, the finding is the fun part. There's nothing like exploring a new stream, pulling up the net, seeing a flash of color, and... hey, what is this?

My start was in Canada. I woud go fishing for pan fish and about the only thing I would haul up was pumpkinseeds. I had a twenty long and would only house one. But my children had a blast. I do not know if house flies were good for him but every time we swat one we would gather round the tank and when thrown in that little p-seed would just come up immedialty and hit it hard. Of course it has been since my childhood over forty years ago I was always in the water somewhere. Catching various critters.

Then into my thirties then forties. When in my forties I was surfing on the net and I came acoss this Page Called NANFA and I saw these men my age and older and I said to myself "wow I am not the only nut" I am glad someone else does this I thought it was just me. And since that day my interest in natives has continued to climb.

I am gratefull for NANFA for the reading and support I get.

Daniel

My start was in Canada. I woud go fishing for pan fish and about the only thing I would haul up was pumpkinseeds. I had a twenty long and would only house one. But my children had a blast. I do not know if house flies were good for him but every time we swat one we would gather round the tank and when thrown in that little p-seed would just come up immedialty and hit it hard. Of course it has been since my childhood over forty years ago I was always in the water somewhere. Catching various critters.

Then into my thirties then forties. When in my forties I was surfing on the net and I came acoss this Page Called NANFA and I saw these men my age and older and I said to myself "wow I am not the only nut" I am glad someone else does this I thought it was just me. And since that day my interest in natives has continued to climb.

I am gratefull for NANFA for the reading and support I get.

Daniel

nativecajun Well said.
and a big thank you to all that have shared a time period from the past.

It is funny to see the similarities of most of our stories. I practically lived in Chipmunk Creek (Muskingum River, Ohio) for most of my childhood. Summer break was great, because my expeditions along the creek could start in the morning instead of after school. In the "early years", I used a 4" green aquarium net to catch juvenile creek chubs, SRBD, and blackside dace in pools you can easily step across. We made a fort in a 7' round culvert that had a "waterfall" at the outlet. From here my brother and I would catch adult creek chubs using hotdogs as bait. They were so colorful, we believed we were catching rainbow trout, and even convinced my father of it! I thought the male breeding tubercules were infections, and went to great lengths to scrape them off of some individuals...poor fish. One day, we fashioned a minnow trap from an inverted two-liter bottle, and stuffed in a mushed hotdog. We pulled it up after only about one or two minutes, and I saw my first adult red belly daces swimming inside! I still get excited when I think of that day...

When I was thirteen (1993) I bought an aquarium magazine from the pet store. In it, I read an article by (NANFA member) Bruce Gebhardt on the keeping of native fish in aquaria. I'm sure a few of you remember it. Anyway, I read a short paragraph about the pygmy sunfishes, which are "hardy enough to survive in ditches" in the south...Corny as it sounds, reading that article was one of the influential experiences that started to shape what I would chose as a career. The faded, creased, magazine photo of Elassoma evergladei hangs in my office at U of A, and in about a year, I'll finish my dissertation on pygmies. I never really thought about it before, but I guess my story shows that NANFA's outreach activities can have a big impact on youngins; which most of you already know.