Today me, Martin (Irate), and Anthony from Slidell did some collecting on the Tangipahoa river. We met up at 9:00 am and me and my dad led them to our collecting spots on the river. As soon as we got out there we started collecting. Immediately we caught some nice shadow bass. We walked down the river a little ways and came to a little creek that runs off of it. By this time we had realized that we left our buckets way down where we first started. So we went into the creek to collect. In this creek we encounterd water moccasins and mud that you would sink two and a half feet into. But thats what makes collecting down south so fun. Unfortunately since we left our buckets way down the river we were not able to keep any of the fish that we caught. In the creek I also got to see my first pimpleback mussel, i had always wanted to see one. After a few hours we had walked about a mile and a half down the creek and decided it was probably time to go back. We then began our long trek back to our buckets and gear. Once we finally got there we relaxed a little bit by the river. We then caught what we wanted to bring home. Martin brought a shadow bass, Anthony got two northern hogsuckers, and I took home one northern hogsucker. Then we decided to call it the day and we all departed to our homes. It was a fun day. I think this trip turned more into a sampling trip rather than a collecting trip because we forgot our buckets. Still i think it was a very nice trip and I hope to see these guys again.They were very nice nice and funny guys to collect with

Heres the species list

Fish (caught)-
Noturus leptacanthus (speckled madtom
Aphredoderus sayanus (pirate perch
Fundulus olivaceous (blackspoted topminnow)
Fundulus eryzonus (broadstripe topminnow)
Gambusia affinis (mosquitofish)
Labidesthes sicculus (brook silverside)
Lepomis gulosus (warmouth)
L. macrochirus (bluegill)
L. megalotis (longear sunfish)
L. miniatus (redspotted sunfish)
Ambloplites ariommus (shadow bass)
Micropterus salmoides (largemouth bass)
Elassoma zonatum (banded pygmy sunfish)
Ammocrypta beani (naked sand darter)
Etheostoma chlorosoma (bluntnose darter)
E. swaini (gulf darter)
E. lynceum (brighteye darter)
Percina nigrofasciata (black banded darter)
P. sciera (dusky darter)
Hybopsis winchelli (clear chub
Lythrurus roseipinnis (cherry fin shiner)
Notropis texanus (weed shiner)
Cyprinella venusta (blacktail shiner)
Notropis volucellus (mimic shiner)
Erimyzon oblongus (creek chubsucker)
Hypentelium nigricans (northern hogsucker)
Moxostoma poecilurum (blacktail redhorse)
Ameiurus melas (black bullhead)
Mugilidae (mullet)


Interesting Plants-
Vallisneria

Interesting Mussels-
Pimpleback mussel

Edited by fundulus, 05 July 2009 - 07:00 PM.

Sounds like you had a great time and that's a very impressive fish list.

Sounds like you had a great time and that's a very impressive fish list.

yep, we did have a great time, we caught some very nice fish.

Hogsuckers. There were THOUSANDS of them. No kidding. The little creek we went into was so fishy we got tired of swishing our nets. Everywhere we went there were fishes swarming around us. Lots of mussel beds (mainly Corbicula, but natives too). Lots of different types of habitat. Very few Gambusia! This river was Primo collecting ground. Not a lot of really pretty fishes, but good diversity and high density.

There is a lot of intergrade here between the three Fundulus species (notatus, olivaceous, and euryzonus) so that it was at times difficult to tell what we had. F. notatus was not included in the species list but very well could have been, and probably were if we had been more rigorous in our ID's. We caught some honkin' big "olivaceous" that could have been euryzonus. It was hard to tell.

Hybopsis winchelli was ID'd from one lone specimen. L. sicculus, M salmoides, and M. poecilurum were ID'd from observation rather than capture. Mullet were ID'd from their leaping habits. Amazon Sr. saw some gar but we don't know what species.