Mark Hylton, Blake Markwell and myself met early in the morning on Saturday and traveled to NE Indiana to sample a couple of lakes. My primary focus (as usual) was photos. In this case I wanted to photograph a few fishes uncommonly encountered in Illinois but more abundant in Indiana. Our first stop yielded an impressive group of fish considering the group consisted of Illinoisans. We sampled a public beach pretty extensively and found the following:

Notropis heterodon Blackchin Shiner
Notropis heterolepis Blacknose Shiner
Notropis stramineus Sand Shiner
Pimephales notatus Bluntnose Minnow
Fundulus diaphanus Banded Killifish
Lepomis gulosus Warmouth
Lepomis macrochirus Bluegill
Lepomis microlophus Redear Sunfish
Etheostoma exile Iowa Darter
Etheostoma microperca Least Darter
Perca flavescens Yellow Perch

I'm tempted to list a couple of others but my memory is failing and I didn't take records from this trip. Maybe Blake or Mark can remember a few more from this site.

We then stopped at a local park without nets and saw Fundulus Dispar dashing about....back in the car and on with the mission.
We drove south to another lake and hunted down a boat ramp I saw on google earth. Finding these new sites looks so easy from google earth but in the real world, you spend 30 minutes looking for a place to get your net wet. We worked this area pretty hard to find well colored Iowa darters since we didn't see any with good colors from the first site. We found many females in deeper water then Blake recommended we work the very shallow water which immediately produced several colored males. I was almost ready to give up before Blake insisted on trying the shallows. We snapped photos and still had time to hit a site and find a campground and set up our gear.

I assume this is a stocked Redear since this is very far out of natural range for them


Notropis heterodon Blackchin Shiner


Notropis heterolepis Blacknose Shiner



Etheostoma exile Iowa Darter



Odd bluegill...I have no idea what caused this


I presume this to be a spiny softshell...I really like these little guys



We then drove to the formation of the Tippecanoe and were unsettled by the high water caused by the rains that subsided only once we arrived at the first lake site. Water was too high to enter this location. With a little time before we really needed to set up camp, we hoped to find a local site with just a little access to see what the Tippecanoe had to offer. We drove to a nearby site which was also deluged and saw large fish (likely carp or sucker) dash away from a pipe discharging water from below the water line. Again the water was too high to get in so we decided to get to the campground.

After setting up camp, we sampled a lake at the campground with quite a few interested onlookers from the campground. We found an impressive population of Brook silversides, a lone tadpole madtom and miscellaneous sunfish.....two more species added to the list. I had a great time after dinner talking with the guys despite the suddenly cool weather. In the morning we hoped to be able to sample a shallow riffle I visited last year but once again we found water to be too high to adequately sample. We still got in the water and found a few fish.

I'd guess this is a little Northern Pike


Mark with a Logperch...this photo needs a clever caption


from left to right:
Mark Hylton, Me and Blake Markwell standing next to a flooded upper Tippecanoe river boat launch


We were determined to see Blubreast and Tippecanoe darters so we headed off to site further downstream to once again see water too high to seine. In an attempt to salvage the rest of the day we gave up on the Tippecanoe and drove to some backwaters of the Kankakee. I'll cover that in the next post.

We sampled a ditch near the Kankakee and found many Grass pickerel, Central mudminnows and Starhead topminnows not to mention the outrageous amounts of snails and dragonfly nymphs among the heavily vegetated and soft bottomed water. We also were lucky enough to see a swarm of young bowfin around dad. After seeing all this ditch had to offer we drove a little further closer to the river and sampled larger water to find much of the same but greater numbers of Starheads. I set up the photo gear and Blake mentioned he wanted to see a Pumkinseed...I knew they were present but we couldn't dig any up with nets so Mark got his rod out and I believe on his first cast he managed to land the best looking Pumkinseed I've ever witnessed.

Lepomis gibbosus Pumpkinseed


Esox americanus vermiculatus Grass Pickerel young


Amia Calva young


We then tried to sample a smal stream I recently visited with ankle deep riffles but we found these riffle almost impossible to stand in.....we called it a day and headed home.

I had a great time despite the high water and welcome the thought of hanging out with these guys again.

Awesome picture of the bowfin and the tail structure.

ALL of the pics are awesome, Uland... as usual! Looks like y'all had a fun trip, even with high water.

Those are some pretty spectacular Notropis pics, my friend. And that bowfin... Holey moley, is that cool. That is gonna need to be used in "Fish Class" next time, if you don't mind

Todd

Indeed, we had a great time even with the high water. Thanks for taking the time to write up the report Uland. The photos are great as usual and I will add some of my own too. It is great to know that two people live in the same state with similar interest and humor, look forward to future trips this summer.

Esox americanus (Grass Pickerel)


Etheostoma exile (Iowa Darter)


Fundulus dispar (Northern Starhead Topminnow)


Lepomis gibbosus (Pumpkinseed Sunfish)


Umbra limi (Central Mudminnow)

Vahry nice-ah, Blake! It's nice to look at a no-question pumpkinseed for once That gray is the shiz-niz-it too.

Were the dispar in the Elkhart River drainage? Was it at that random park where we talked to all the kids last fall Uland? Did you guys go downstream again to those bigger pools? Man, there were a lot of gamefish in there.

Todd

Looking good Blake and thanks for the kind words everyone.
Todd, we did stop at that park and saw the F. dispar but did not drag out the nets. The dispar Blake posted (BTW a much better photo than mine) came from Newton County (Kankakee dr.)

WOW! great pics, especially the bowfin, seeing that tail development is amazing

"Those are beautiful animals!"

Just got my copy of Freshwater Fishes of South Carolina. Nice book, especially the pics. Especially that one of the juvie muskie on p.243, ULAND!

Also, props to Dustin Smith for his contributions to the collections, and to Mike Sandel for same.

Marc

Wow! Awesome pictures and descriptions guys! Thanks for posting!

Brian

Are you guys doing any touching up in photoshop to remove the shadows? Or are these "as is"?

Are you guys doing any touching up in photoshop to remove the shadows? Or are these "as is"?

Nate, I'm replacing the background in these photos but the orangethroats and slenderheads are "as is" in the topic Kankakee and tribs 5-10-09

This has been bugging me for a while...I believe despite the slightly elongated snout, the below fish is a Pumkinseed and not a Redear???
I would appreciate your thoughts.

id say p-seed, looks a lot like one other than the whitish coloring

Looks like a Pumpkin-ear or a Red-seed to me!! ..Sorry, I couldn't resist!

Brian

Brian J. Torreano - Owner
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Once again, great photos! Question: In the photos of the fish taken in the photo box, it appears they all have their fins fully and optimally extended for photographing. This is not always the case with those in hand or in water. Is this an effect of gentle pressure being placed upon them in the photo box with the box's paddle? Or are multiple photos required to get one of the fish in this state? Are the fish basically held motionless in a sort of suspended animation, or do they attempt to move about? Just curious...
BTW - excellent report! Thanks for sharing.

Once again, great photos! Question: In the photos of the fish taken in the photo box, it appears they all have their fins fully and optimally extended for photographing. This is not always the case with those in hand or in water. Is this an effect of gentle pressure being placed upon them in the photo box with the box's paddle? Or are multiple photos required to get one of the fish in this state? Are the fish basically held motionless in a sort of suspended animation, or do they attempt to move about? Just curious...
BTW - excellent report! Thanks for sharing.

"Is this an effect of gentle pressure being placed upon them in the photo box with the box's paddle?"
For the most part, I would say yes but holding them prior to photographing and the fact the fish are pretty angry also is likely to play a role in erect fins.

"Or are multiple photos required to get one of the fish in this state? Are the fish basically held motionless in a sort of suspended animation, or do they attempt to move about?"
I often take dozens or even a hundred photos of the same subject. This is partly due to the fact my digital camera is both very fast and has large storage. Sometimes fish cooperate very well and I also do a decent job with the camera settings. In this case everything works on the first shot but this is rare. Some fish wiggle and some will not erect fins (some do both). Some fish shapes are not suited well for these photo tanks and simply will not offer a profile photograph. Most fish will settle down in the tank after 30 seconds or so and I can begin to position them with the paddle.

I believe you can adjust your camera settings to accommodate moving fish but I choose settings where the fish needs to be motionless while the shutter is open.

Nate, I'm replacing the background in these photos but the orangethroats and slenderheads are "as is" in the topic Kankakee and tribs 5-10-09

I'm not the best when it comes to photoshop, how do you "replace the background"?