Anyone able to come to the Capital District, Albany NY area for some collecting this Saturday May 9th, weather permitting.
If we could get started by mid morning we could hit a few nice spots for greenside, fantail, tesselated, and logperch darters, spotfin, common, golden shiners, blacknose, longnose, n redbelly, redside, pearl dace, fathead, cutlips, central stoneroller minnows, northern hog suckers, brook sticklebacks plus some other possibilities.

Anyone able to come to the Capital District, Albany NY area for some collecting this Saturday May 9th, weather permitting.
If we could get started by mid morning we could hit a few nice spots for greenside, fantail, tesselated, and logperch darters, spotfin, common, golden shiners, blacknose, longnose, n redbelly, redside, pearl dace, fathead, cutlips, central stoneroller minnows, northern hog suckers, brook sticklebacks plus some other possibilities.

YAY!!!! im def in...almost a 3 hour drive but im down!! I cant wait to get some darters def would like a logperch darter if it would go with my other fish. i need some other fish as well!!! im so excited..i have never done this before what should i need to bring?

Edited by bumpylemon, 04 May 2009 - 07:54 PM.

Anyone able to come to the Capital District, Albany NY area for some collecting this Saturday May 9th, weather permitting.
If we could get started by mid morning we could hit a few nice spots for greenside, fantail, tesselated, and logperch darters, spotfin, common, golden shiners, blacknose, longnose, n redbelly, redside, pearl dace, fathead, cutlips, central stoneroller minnows, northern hog suckers, brook sticklebacks plus some other possibilities.

Mike,
You are a greater gonzo than I am.

Weather permitting means to me
that lightning is not about to strike me.

I can't imagine what 'weather permitting' means to you.

Mike,
You are a greater gonzo than I am.

Weather permitting means to me
that lightning is not about to strike me.

I can't imagine what 'weather permitting' means to you.

Hahah that's a good point. I mean if its raining that shouldn't matter since ur already soaked by the water ur netting in.

Mike,
You are a greater gonzo than I am.

Weather permitting means to me
that lightning is not about to strike me.

I can't imagine what 'weather permitting' means to you.

I'll take that as a compliment. But greater then the one to stare in the face of a cocked water Moccasin I don't know that I can live up to that standard. But you did toss your part of the seine before I was able to check for fish so I guess we both have room to grow. But you are correct regarding lightning and tornados, hurricanes and ice too thick to break though I now tend to consider as limitations as I've gotten older and wiser.

Weather is looking good for Saturday. Any New Yorkers interested. Or others, NY does have a one day fishing license for $15 I believe. This is a great time if water's not too high which I don't think it will be. Then again last yr around this time it was but we still did very well. http://forum.nanfa.o...?showtopic=1787

Weather is looking good for Saturday. Any New Yorkers interested. Or others, NY does have a one day fishing license for $15 I believe. This is a great time if water's not too high which I don't think it will be. Then again last yr around this time it was but we still did very well. http://forum.nanfa.o...?showtopic=1787

im excited!! cant wait to go. yes the license for one day is 15. i hope i get all the fish i think i want lol.

im excited!! cant wait to go. yes the license for one day is 15. i hope i get all the fish i think i want lol.

anyone else going to come?


man we neeed ALOT more activity on this site.

No, we need more local people interested in the relatively depauperate natives of NY / New England. Bring them on!

No, we need more local people interested in the relatively depauperate natives of NY / New England. Bring them on!

Amen to that. I do understand how Bumpylemon feels, kinda how I feel when I get to collect in NC, TN, AL, FL and other states blessed with a greater abundance of cool natives. Even so its not hard to appreciate what's local either less species but some very interesting characters and some beauties as well.

You're absolutely right. I didn't want to sound cranky in that last message, NY state is the edge of a good diversity of interesting natives. And southern New England is, too, especially with various marine and estuarine species.

You're absolutely right. I didn't want to sound cranky in that last message, NY state is the edge of a good diversity of interesting natives. And southern New England is, too, especially with various marine and estuarine species.

i didnt mean just new england i meant more posters in general...over on MFK they have a lot of posters in the native section....but its mostly bass and pikes. but i mean like 7 new posts a day on here is not alot. i feel like i post to much but im new and dont know that much about natives yet. tomorrow will be my first time seining. there are other mass members on here that should of got in on this trip or at least comment

i didnt mean just new england i meant more posters in general...over on MFK they have a lot of posters in the native section....but its mostly bass and pikes. but i mean like 7 new posts a day on here is not alot. i feel like i post to much but im new and dont know that much about natives yet. tomorrow will be my first time seining. there are other mass members on here that should of got in on this trip or at least comment

This forum is very different from just about every other "fish" forum on the 'net. The members on this forum don't "chat" on the forum and posts usually don't consist of just "Nice fish!".

NANFA is a very small organization. There aren't many people that do what we do. We truly are a mix of enthusiasts, hobbyists, students, educators, and professionals. We don't have a lot of representation in the East with most of membership in the South and Mid-west.

We hope that you stick around and get involved with the members we do have in your Region. If you really want to blow your mind, join us at our annual convention, being held in Tampa, FL this year.

This forum is very different from just about every other "fish" forum on the 'net. The members on this forum don't "chat" on the forum and posts usually don't consist of just "Nice fish!".

NANFA is a very small organization. There aren't many people that do what we do. We truly are a mix of enthusiasts, hobbyists, students, educators, and professionals. We don't have a lot of representation in the East with most of membership in the South and Mid-west.

We hope that you stick around and get involved with the members we do have in your Region. If you really want to blow your mind, join us at our annual convention, being held in Tampa, FL this year.

yeah i hear you...you do have a point about the "nice fish" comments....we need more northern native fish lovers lol.

Sadly I couldn't make this trip but I am curious how it went, will you have a trip report up shortly. I am curious on northeastern fish sampling living in this part of the nation (NH) myself.

Also, an unrelated question. I always wondered if anyone ever tried "cataloging/sampling" sampling species over a rivers drainage and recording where they are found as a "scientific map of species".

Yeah, that's what a lot of applied fish ecology does as a science, trying to understand what shapes community structure over a continuum of varying environments as various species replace each other. And many of "The Fishes of ___" state books include distribution maps that pretty much do the same thing. In general you find the same broad patterns within a region, with types of shiners, darters, sculpins in the smaller tributaries of a river system and a somewhat predictable replacement pattern happening as you examine larger streams downstream. It all depends...

Yeah, that's what a lot of applied fish ecology does as a science, trying to understand what shapes community structure over a continuum of varying environments as various species replace each other. And many of "The Fishes of ___" state books include distribution maps that pretty much do the same thing. In general you find the same broad patterns within a region, with types of shiners, darters, sculpins in the smaller tributaries of a river system and a somewhat predictable replacement pattern happening as you examine larger streams downstream. It all depends...

we had a great day. i will let mike post the trip report cuz he knows so much about the area...i will follow with the pics....all my fish made it home alive!!! i had the best time ever....im ready to go next week already!!! so whos in?

we had a great day. i will let mike post the trip report cuz he knows so much about the area...i will follow with the pics....all my fish made it home alive!!! i had the best time ever....im ready to go next week already!!! so whos in?

Your going next week? I'll go depending on how far i get on my "project" I have a full week off to work on it?

What project? To make room for a fish tank I am cleaning my room, something i put off for 3 years. however it's going very slow (it's been a few months) as the cleaning seems daunting and i only have done a tiny bit one day each week (i swear the more i clean the messier it looks, mainly because i clean the corbners were stuff was once piled up which moves it into the way),. I have two full weeks off to focus on it. If I can get it done i will buy the 55 gallon tank from my neighbor and set up my 3 and 1 gallon. (the 1 gallon is for raising food for the fish, shrimp or daphnia, the three gallon may be used for a few small fish, not sure how many dace/darters i should put in it).

If I can finish my daunting task i'd definately go, i'd need directions to the meet up spot though.

Your going next week? I'll go depending on how far i get on my "project" I have a full week off to work on it?

What project? To make room for a fish tank I am cleaning my room, something i put off for 3 years. however it's going very slow (it's been a few months) as the cleaning seems daunting and i only have done a tiny bit one day each week (i swear the more i clean the messier it looks, mainly because i clean the corbners were stuff was once piled up which moves it into the way),. I have two full weeks off to focus on it. If I can get it done i will buy the 55 gallon tank from my neighbor and set up my 3 and 1 gallon. (the 1 gallon is for raising food for the fish, shrimp or daphnia, the three gallon may be used for a few small fish, not sure how many dace/darters i should put in it).

If I can finish my daunting task i'd definately go, i'd need directions to the meet up spot though.

well i would like to go out again. its simple amazing. if mike could go then we could go to NY with him. then you and I could car pool down there. i would like to go to like virginia or something. maybe catch something a lil different. im def hooked on this now thats for sure. talking about it on here then actually doing it are 2 different things.

Justin and I met at Walmart in East Greenbush about 9:30 Sat morning and headed out I90 west to I88 to a out of the way spot near Sloansville for our first and farthest stop. This is a large pond on one side of the road and connected by a culvert to a smaller one behind a beaver dam on the opposite side of the road. The shoulder barely allows for the tires on one side to be off the road but traffic is rare so I just park on the road. If the Northern Redbelly dace are in breeding condition you can scoop as many as you need in a few dips from the shoulder and not even get wet. Usually find lots of Golden shiners, fathead minnows, Pumpkinseed sunnies and brown bullheads as well. This day after 30 minutes of dip netting we only found one northern redbelly dace so I changed into my swamping sneakers and took my 8'x4' seine into the narrow area that wasn't posted and after several passes found four more so Justin would have a nice school. The odd thing is that we found no golden shiners at all, but did find all the others normally seen here. The beavers had moved to the other side and had made a long low damn across the area just before the large pond opened up which if not posted would have likely yielded a larger number of Northerns, but we had what we needed so off to Schoharie creek we went about five minutes away.

Schoharie is a creek that can change radically depending on the season and rain. When it floods which at times can be at least several feet higher and often more it can change the stream bed so that the deep holes are filled up and new holes are scoured with riffle areas changing in size and or location. with a week or so of dry weather water levels drop quickly. It also seems you can never be sure exactly what fish you might find. Here's what we found Sat with normal water levels:

Greenside darters(only small ones and one medium sized female)
Logperch (various sizes and abundant)
Fantail darters (only females)
Longnose Dace (breeding condition)
Rosyface shiners ( just starting to get the red)
Stonecats
Spottail shiners
Some monster hellgrammites

We could not find any large greensides which is unusual but don't usually find logperch so abundantly. also first time I haven't found bluntnose minnows and spotfin shiners here. Others not collected this time but have found in the past are: trout perch, rock bass, smallmouth bass, bluegills, emerald shiners, tesselated darters.

We made a stop another 10 minutes away at Fox creek to see if we could find some larger Greenside darters but only found more small ones but the males were still nice. also found more longnose dace and logperch and of course the unusal find of a male rainbow darter.

So we headed east on Rt 443 for about 30 minutes to a small tributary of Fox creek. though much smaller the fishing was better. Heres the list:
Redside dace (breeding condition)
Longnose dace (breeding condition, found about 30 colored up ones in just one small two foot shallow riffle)
Blacknose dace (coloring up)
Creek chubs
Cutlips minnows
Common shiners (coloring up)
Fathead minnows
Tesselated darters (breeding condition)
White suckers
Northern hog sucker

I was dissappointed to find beavers had been busy the last two weeks damning up several spots eliminating several riffle areas and slowing some runs out of pools where redside dace usually hang out. I wonder if this might interfere with the redside spawning as most redside holes were now closed pools.

We did a water change on Justins fish and headed back to his vehicle in E Greenbush and he headed off home with plans to start a couple more native tanks.