I went collecting yesterday after work. Started with the rod and reel, landed 40+ black crappie, from 8" to 16". One largemouth, 6 lbs or so, my personal best in that particular pond. He struck a crappie jig, white. Quite a tussle on my ultralight noodle rod! I also did a little cast netting that got absolutely nothing. Then, I started to sample with my minnow net. I scooped up leaf litter and some plants next to shore. I sampled in five diferent locations. Four of those locations supplied numerous bluegill, .5-1", damselfly and dragon fly larva, pond snails, ramshorn snails, and a suprising number of mysis shrimp. Also some clams. The larva, pond snails, and clams were returned to the water, as well as most of the bluegills. I kept some ramshorn snails, blugill, and all the mysis shrimp. The clams, mysis, and ramshorns were surprises for me, as I did not know they were going to be in residence in this particular pond. The fifth site produced all of the above, plus two crayfish, >1", and also some bull minnows, very small. At least I think they are bull minnows, it's hard to tell at their size. They could also be some sort of killifish, Gambusia, or something else. I brought them home and put them in a 5.5 gallon tank, bare bottomed, to start their acclimitization to my water. Pond water was 6.5 pH, my tap water (well) is 8.4pH. So, I'm gonna do numerous small water changes over the next few day's to slowly bring the pH up. Also, the crayfish were a surprise, as I've yet to see any, or any signs of them, in the ponds on the virginia eastern shore. Some in salisbury though.

Edited by kzimmerman, 18 March 2009 - 08:17 AM.

"Bull minnow" can mean any bait store fish on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. In the Gulf it's usually used for the Gulf killifish, Fundulus grandis (and the name fits!). I'd guess in the Accomac area it could mean mummichog, F. heteroclitus, or maybe banded killifish, F. diaphanus. If bandeds that's truly interesting because they've disappeared from much of their original habitat in the southern half of the Delmarva.

When I checked em, I noticed one had a gonopodium, so therefore, gambusia. It's the only livebearer in this area. I've caught lots of the banded killies, but all have been in full salt, while seining for seahorses, which i've never found. Most of the ponds around here are slightly brackish, and have very limited biodiversity. They are mostly old farm ponds, all stocked. Mummichogs are what they call the bull minnow up north, down here they just call em minnows. Or bait.