November 15, 2008
South Chickamauga Creek Greenway Alliance Picnic and Native Fish Show & Tell.
After enjoying the Southeastern Fishes Council meeting here in Chattanooga, Ed Scott, a recently retired TVA fisheries biologist and Bob Hrabik, the NANFA 2006 Missouri convention host, arrived at my home the following misty morning. There had been discussion of a Conasauga field trip and it had fallen through, but a creekside picnic was occuring that same noon and i had offered to bring along some friends to give a little show and tell of the creek's critters if the opportunity allowed. Rain had fallen throughout the night and continued to drizzle that morning as we did a quick tour of the cement pond and my Florida aquaria. Having an hour or so before the picnic we donned our rain gear and took a misty walk into Audubon Acres, a 130 acre wildlife refuge behind my home. We crossed the swinging bridge and i noted that the water had muddied and risen a bit from the previous night's rain. Though the rain was untimely for our planned activity, it was well needed as this region has suffered a long drought, even still with the new rain the creek was still relatively low. Crossing the bridge, the trail forked on the far bank and we decided to walk the creekside trail and follow it upstream to a long fallen Tulip Poplar log. The log has regularily yielded Oyster mushrooms, and again it had done so. Ed cut off two large clumps of grey oysters and several smaller petals of white oysters and placed them in the basket. Though heavy and water logged they were fresh and promised a fine addition to our evening meal. We followed the trail a bit further and found several red capped Russulas and Amanita Deathcaps growing at the wooded edge of the field. They were admired but did not go into the basket as we plan to live long and catch more fish. After meandering a bit further we returned following the same trail and Ed spotted a semi arc of mushrooms growing low and nearly hidden among the newly fallen and multicolored leaves. Standing tall, black and nearly limbless was a lone dead tree marking the arc's orgin. Ed quickly identified this pretty, subtly lavender colored and capped mushroom as a Blewit, a new one for me. We picked several of the Blewits and briskly returned to the house as noon was fast appoaching. The van was loaded with waders, buckets, an aquarium, my seine and Bob's Missouri Trawl. I had offered to bring along a few friends to the Alliance's Fall Picnic if they would share of their table in exchange for a bit of fishy show and tell. We, nor they, were disappointed. The food was delicious and the fish aplenty. The picnic site is on a pretty piece of property that lays alongside South Chick, just a couple creek miles upstream of my home. Mr. Phil Spencer and his wife purchased the land several years ago and built a house near the road and property entrance. Together they cleared the overgrowth from the pastureland and low wooded field. A barn, horses, large trees, a spring fed pond, a small lake and a shelter greeted us under which the picnic's covered dishes were laid out on the tables. A fire warmed everyone as we greeted, introduced, chatted and listened to Mr. Spencer retelling his account of the sewage treatment pond located alongside and just upstream of their property.
The story goes something like this...
For years, 250 house flushed their sewage directly into a settling pond which was bermed and fenced. Overflow and thus the outflow from this lagoon drained directly into South Chickamauga Creek through an old streambed. He had complained to authorites and was ignored, dismissed and assured everything was proper and in accordance with all legalities. Finally he called an area TV newsman, Calvin Sneed, to visit the site. Calvin took a sample of the water and had a laboratory anaylize it. Of course the water was excessively high in feces and bacterial count. He promptly reported this on the evening news and suddenly what had been dismissed in the months before became an urgent situation. Within a few weeks the 250 houses were properly connected to the water treatment plant, ( with only a 10' section of pipe! ), and the sewage pond pumped dry, the sediments hauled away, and is currently being filled and will soon be closed. Shamefully, the city of Ringgold, Georgia had been collecting sewage treatment fees from the residents for years and yet had been allowing this outflow of raw sewage into the creek. Paid and elected authorities had ignored the disgusting situation until Calvin's news report exposed it. We are grateful for Phil and Calvin's persistance and efforts in not allowing those in authority to continually ignore the situation. I am bewildered that in this day and country something like that could have been occuring. When Phil brought it to the South Chickamauga Creek Greenway Alliance's attention at a monthly meeting the alliance registered complaints with the EPA Compliance Department and Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The SCCGA had scheduled a visit to the Georgia EPA office to check records but when the situation was resolved with Calvin's efforts they cancelled the trip.
We all celebrated the accomplishment and enjoyed the fellowship and wonderful food that the membership had brought and shared. In addition to the many casserole dishes, salad, fall vegetables, beer, lemonade and tea and fancy desserts we roasted hotdogs and marshmellows over the warming fire.
The sun began to peek out of the drizzling clouds and blue sky could be seen in several directions. Ed, Bob and i pulled our waders on and descended the steep bank to access the old creek bed. The water looked as if it had risen 1 or 2 feet since the site scouting i had done a week before with Phil. The water was muddied and we were unsure of the footing but upon entering we found it relatively firm though several submerged logs stumbled us until we had their locations marked. None of us was inclined to taking an over the waders full face plunge on such a day! First we worked the backwater area and seined out several species of Sunfish, lots of Silversides and a few minnow types. The cool weather keep the Silversides alive and we placed the largest and most handsome fish of each specie in our buckets. From a backwater eddie below the creek run we flushed out a few new fish and carried the buckets back up the steep bank.
I setup a 10 gallon aquarium on a table, filled it with the pond's clear spring water, hand checked the temperature and dropped one specie in at a time. The picnic attendees gathered around as we identified and told stories of each fish and their behavior like the stone flipping Logperch, mound building River Chubs and pit digging Rollering Stones, aka Campostoma. Everyone loved the sucker mouthed Hogsuckers and enjoyed the stories while the sun shined but when another grey cloud drifted over us and began drizzling rain most folks hurried back to the shelter leaving us in dripping hats and wet waders. But after a few minutes the sun would again shine and make us all smile and be glad to be outside on such a day. This alternating chilling rain and warming sunshine continued throughout the day and made for an interesting weather experience.
We decided to try out the Missouri Trawl on the spring fed pond. Walking to the far side Bob laid out the trawl and then carefully circled with the long lines in hand. Standing now on the opposite side Bob and Ed carefully pulled the trawl to them and directly through the center of the pond. A massive glob of bottom algae filled the net and Bob had to get in waste deep and heft the heavy net up chest high onto the steep bank. We were hoping to be greeted by an interesting diversity but Bluegills and Gambusia were the common sight. Being told that when the creek overflows, this pond also floods, we had expected to see some suprises. Hoping for at least a catfish we pulled across the pond again with the same globby results, but added a dinner plate sized pond slider. Connie had by now arrived with my 2 girls and their friend so we soon had a multitude of children jostling for turtle touching, aquarium peering, endless questions and new suprises being pulled out of the black buckets. As usual all children wanted to hold a fish and each were promptly handed any plump Mosquito Fish that appeared. Only the young and brave opened their hands for the crawdads, but most everyone kissed the Hogsuckers for good luck.
The picnickers loaded up for a hayride but we were beckoned back by a promising long gravel run and prompty returned to the creek. The 3 of us headed upstream and worked a few pool areas catching Warpaints, Scarlets and likely Steelcolors. We planted the long poled seine in a deep fast run for darters and set about kicking into the current. As Ed lifted his end the pole snapped clean nearly tumbling him into the current. It seems that long broom handles are not to be recommended as heavy duty brails! Now seineless, Bob set up his Missouri Trawl in preparation of running the entire length of the gravel run. Bob and Ed raced downstream with me hurriedly carrying the buckets in tow. New and more species appeared in the nets catch bag. The Missouri Trawl is a neat tool to aid in collecting, and i look forward to using it again this spring. It is a well thought out design and worked very smoothly in a variety of habitats. With the newly collected species we delivered our last identification show and tell as the low sun began to reach the ridge line. The light was greying, the rain still misting and many of the picnikers had begun to leave. The remaining few waved us goodbye as we returned to the creek for a few more trawl pulls.
Alltogether we identified 30 species.
Sunfish: Warmouth, Redbreast, Redear, Longear, Bluegill, Green and Spotted and Largemouth Bass
Minnows: Bluntnose and Bullhead
Shiners: Whitetail, Scarlet, Striped, Warpaint, Steelcolor or Spotfin, Golden
Darters: Logperch, Redline, Rainbow, Speckled, Greenside, Banded and Snubnoses
Brook Silversides, Stonerollers, Hogsuckers, River Chubs, Bigeye Chubs, a Mountain Madtom and plenty of Mosquito Fish.
If we had more time, a bit more sunshine, an unbroken brail and Dave along we surely would have added several more species such as Snail and Dusky Darters, Stargazing minnows, Black Spotted or Striped Topminnows, and some of the bigger fish like Gar, Redhorse, Drum, Catfish and maybe some Buffalo if we had been extra lucky.
Though we have much reason to celebrate with the cessation of the raw sewage flow into the creek and the day's collected diversity of fishes we can only dream of what this creek was like 200 or 300 years ago. All of us can easily see our impact on the stream be it the siltation from erosion, the steep channeling and low dams, the high nutrient levels from cattle, fertilizers and sewage or just plain dumped trash. Years ago the creek was surely bountiful in the quanity and diversity of fishes, mussels, salamanders and crawfish. In fact three species of fish that were collected just 50 or so years ago are now no longer found. The secretive Yellowfin Madtom, the beautiful turquoise Spotfin Chub and the unique Blotchside Logperch have all disappeared from our creek. This should motivate us to continue our efforts to clean, protect and preserve South Chickamauga Creek.
Shivering and with the sun well below the ridgeline we pulled our gear off and loaded up for the short drive back to my home where we cooked and enjoyed an evening meal of fresh collected Oyster mushrooms, avacado salad, Ed's Redhorse fish patties, Zummo's Jalapeno Boudin, Old Crustacean from Tyler's home brewery and finally Persimmon pudding complimented with Ed's fizzy Hard Apple Cider. Bob told us of Missouri, his son, their trip to China and the neat house overlooking a creek they discovered, bought and have been renovating. Sounds like a good place to stay while exploring Southeast Missouri! All and all it turned to be a wonderful and fine day ending with Ed returning home to Knoxville and Bob and i relaxing and enjoying fishy videos from CFI, Dr. Roston and FarmerTodd. We dream of fish.
Casper Cox
NANFA TN Representative
NANFA Youtube Channel 
