I tried sampling last saturday.

My first stop was another spot on the asuelot river in keene, though i saw small suckers in the water i caught nothing besides a couple crayfish.

My next stop was the minnewawa, i was hoping to find a spot with darters besides the ashuelot. The minewawa was a nice, riffley stream full of stoneflies and hellgramites. The type of stream that in new york would be teaming with a variety of fish.

This being new hampshire I only got 2 longnose dace.

I then tried a small stream I saw a few pools of minnows in last week when the water was low.

This week the water was high and only saw some under the bridge. Smaller light colored ones and a larger dark colored one. They swam along the concrete edge of the bridge but i could not net them, they could easilly slip between the gaps where my round net hits the wall.

I went back to the asuelot spot where i found the darters, high water made sampling hard but i found one darter.

I decided to show the darter to a bait shop owner who swore he never saw one. This guy always has a perch, crappie, or bullhead on display so I sort of saw him as a fellow native fish keeper. I originally wanted to return the darter (I need all the darters i can so when my tank is ready) but he took it with the minnows to be his pet.

I made a mistake of giving him the fish (especially that poor darter). when I asked him on his fish care methods.

His minnows mostly died of a fungus (except the long nose i gave him last week) and his bullhead died today.

I asked him on medicating and he said he doesn't medicate his tanks (giant cement ones) as it would be too expensive at 500 dollars.

Then I made the mistake of asking him on feeding his fish.... he doesn't, he assumed the well water being pumped into his tanks will have stuff they eat in it. I was shocked. At least I fed my fish before they died. I regretted giving him fish. Especially the darter.

Also my larger of my two nets i use for kick netting and the more effective of the two ripped from the rocks and current and I couldn't find another small mesh net of a good size. Does anyone know where i can find one? especially one that can withstand rocks and current?

You can get a cheap, small seine (4 X 4 foot) at Walmart, but you might be better off with a decent dipnet. Do a search on this forum as they have been discussed a number of times. I like my perfect dipnet from Jonah's but I'm not sure if thats an option currently. With a good dipnet you can easily sample those quicker areas without the net pulling you downstream.

salt is real cheap @ your local feed store.
as for a cheep net try this one it will last 2 maybe 3 years @ most if you can sew.
http://store.bobbers...netco4x8mi.html
check your local laws for legal net size first.
and tell your local bait store friend old cat food from the dollar store will feed the fish cheap they wont live well but will eat.
Or a bag of trout chow will work as well.
some times its sad to see the shape a local bait store puts fish in but this is life. I am man that once had an operation.
I woke up from the medicine to hear people talking about playing golf. They quickly put me back under, when all was done I survived the
operation. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that sometimes humans become numb to everyday occurances. So don't be too
hard on him. It's sad but true!

Edited by CATfishTONY, 19 June 2009 - 09:28 PM.

yes, i got them on sunday today but why waste a pre-existing post.

I went to ask a friend who raised fish and a fish store owner why the ammonia isn't becoming nitrite and nitrate, both answered the same thing.... no fish waste to feed the bacteria. So I got some fedder guppies (hopefully soon i will hav e something to feed on them) then went and sampled the ashuelot in ashuelot river park in keene. Downstream of the dam I got nothing, upstream of it I got two darters from under one rock (it was a fairly small rock too). I later tried the minnewawa and got nothing their. (other than stoneflies and hellgrammites which I threw back).

I did a 10 percent water change then put the darters in my tank and observed something strange. The first darter which alighted on gravel took on a mottled dark brown color. The second which landed on a white rock turned transparent.

The transparent darter was cool, i never seen that before.

Neither of them have the cool coloration my tesselate from new york had of light brown with faint vertical bands.

I wonder when I should start feeding them, i fed my new york tesselate right off, but then again he was eating dirt in the bag, these ones seem more jittery then he did though.

Edited by FirstChAoS, 21 June 2009 - 05:39 PM.