I zigzagged over to the Conasauga and 411 where thankfully the water was relatively clear and is still one of my favorite waters to visit. The temperature was comfortable and i snorkeled in my t-shirt and shorts for a couple hours and worked a stretch of about 100 yards. Visibility was about 10' in the low shadowed light. Many of the stones were covered with a spring green growth of a plant. Most of this river's watershed is forested and it shows. Still tho, from 411 and up several miles, the river adjoins agricultured fields and there has been high erosion events during big rains turning the water opaque.
Sunday saw...
Blacktail Shiners, elegant males in their prime working the fast waters.
Alabama Shiners doing the same and with handsome colors and hot white tubercules.
Tricolor Shiners, a few with their dorsal flags pronouncing their namesake.
Blue Shiners, a few males in nice color and displaying near submerged structure.
Lots of silvery shiners! Coosa? My eyes go buggy trying to keep up with all the fast motion.
Mobile Logperch flipping stones, calmly by my side.
Bronze Darters, Holiday, Blackbanded, Greenbreast. Speckeleds. Coosa.
Hogsuckers, Stonerollers.
Southern Studfish in the sandy shallows. Washed out colors.
Nervous Drum, Redhorses, River Redhorses. Ive never seen so many River Reds. Some must have been 30" long, tho it is hard to tell while snorkeling true dimensions. I counted 7 resting beneath me at one point. They are not as skittish as the other Redhorses and will allow a fairly close approach.
Redbreasted Sunfish. Probably Longears among them.
Shadow Bass guarding his nest. Coosa / Redeye Bass and Bass bass.
Ive been here a bunch of times and was not so interested on specie count so began to play with my Dad's underwater camera. Its an Olympus Stylus 790 SW, very fast and responsive compared to my old landbased coolpix. Ive been trying to get a hang of the features, various options and controls with only some success in the cement pond. Even harder In the Conasauga, trying to stay oriented in the current, not stirring up debris as the flash seems to bounce off any suspended matter in the water turning the picture white hazy. I can get a beautiful picture of something not moving, such as the clean substrate in crisp, nice color and high resolution. But add a speeding Shiner, click click click and hope you can catch it, and then it will likely be blurry. I deleted 90% of the shots and kept about 15 to study as the camera seems to have a pic memory allowing me to review the settings for each picture. Here are a few, i wish they were better and will continue practicing. I enjoyed the activity and will try again with batteries fully charged as i exhausted them on this first excursion.
Alabama Shiner, burning bright and hot blurred in the flash.
Mobile Logperch turning stones and keeping one eye on the big fish.
Some of the nice green vegetation. River Weed i believe.
River Redhorse, note those bright red fins. They are big fish! Protected in the Conasauga.
Greenbreast Darter. I followed this guy a long time and he would never allow me to get close for a natural shot. They seem to spend most of their time peering out from under rocks in fast riffle runs.
NANFA Youtube Channel 
