Josh and I went on an expedition yesterday, back to the Rockcastle area. Couldn't have picked a better day. Just beautiful, and the streams weren't very high. The idea was to get away from Livingston itself, as we kept stirring up motor oil when we dragged the bottom. It was the right move.
First stop was the fork of two creeks around 10 miles south of Livingston, where I found this gorgeous little fellow, plus another male and a female. We also found several enormous striped darters in full color. Two of them had white spot patterns on their pectoral fins, very interesting. When I put them in the tank, they promptly scurried under the big rocks at the back, and have absolutely refused to come out, so no photos yet. Curious event - when I put the three speckled darters in the tank, the two males squared off near the female, fins flashing, hairy eyeball. One finally left, and the other perched on top of the female.
Second stop was at another creek a few miles away, where I found a peculiar darter. Shaped and striped like a rainbow or headwater, but the stripes were about the same light emerald as the speckled, though not quite as intense. Very pretty. Still working on photo'ing that one.
Final stop was the S Fork of the Rockcastle river, down in D Boone National Forest. I was getting discouraged, as we weren't finding much of anything and I was dog tired at that point, between dragging a net all day, and battling allergies. Josh came running back - I found them! Ran back up, and it's either a bloodfin or a bluebreast - red spots on the side, red fins, a big proud fellow. We worked that area over pretty well, but couldn't find any more. I did find what was probably another orangethroat variant, beautiful, but didn't keep it. Looked a lot like the thoroughbred darter.
A fun trip. I also brought back three northern studfish from a big school we found, plus a couple of highland shiners, very pretty.
NANFA Youtube Channel 
