11 replies to this topic

[Michael Wolfe]

Just a quick report... on Sunday I went out to a couple of local places with nativeplanter (and her significant other) to see if we couldn't chase down a few yellowfin shiners (I love 'em and I think she needed some for a trade).

We hit a very small spot down a dirt road from my hosue and came up with the usual yellowfins, creek chubs, potential bluehead chubes, and a hybopsis looking chub that I am not sure of yet (I have seen it before and it looks a lot like a rosy face chub, but I am not sure if we are in range here in Athens). We also saw a young (dime size) sunfish and a darter. Well that got someone's attention and so natveplanter starts digging in the rubble and kicking everything in sight and starts coming up with some really beautiful darters all blue green underside from their chins to their tails. Turns out to be tourquoise darters and we both were able to get a few.

Next we hit another spot still in the same drainage and found most of the same minnows, although we did come up with several of what I am more confident are juvenile bluehead chubs (another of my favorite aquarium fish).

I think that we may get nativeplanter to pst a picture or two of those darters (the ones that I kept were smaller and not in color). They were a sight to behold on a clear cool day in the sunny south.

[Michael Wolfe]

So this is my own 5 year old post... but I did it again... went out collecting locally in December... you've gotta love it... short sleeves and sweating in my waders... in December.

Anyway, this time I was alone and hit the same stream... but all the way at the very source of it. It starts in a natural spring/swamp area beside my neighborhood... the swamp overflows through a culvert and is a stream... 3 feet wide and ankle deep... with occasional calf deep pools.

I tried to solo seine and dip net in the swamp and only caught plants (which I will later post and ask Laura to identify if they actually grow... if they don't grow then I don't care so much) and tadpoles and a few small salamanders. So I went to the other side of the culvert and tried seining in the stream. I am consistently surprised at how far upstream fish will go... I mean I am essentially at river mile(?) ten yards... and I catch creek chubs, bluehead chubs, redbreast sunfish (I think... they are the size of my thumbnail) and of course, these guys...

Even in December, they came out of the stream with a pinkish color and a the obvious metallic yellow-green stripe above the dark lateral stripe... Notropis lutipinnis the yellowfin shiner... you gotta love em... I put these guys in a bucket in the basement overnight with a sponge filter from another tank and let the air change the water temp... put them in a tank with other shiners and fed them flake and they ate it up. The perfect aquarium fish!

[Michael Wolfe]

Just out of curiosity, what kind of water temps do y'all have in Georgia now?

Well, I did not put a thermometer in it... I gotta start doing that (note to self: put old aquarium thermometer in glove box of Jeep)... but my hands were never really cold... I mean it felt just like cold tap water... air temp was 60 or so water temp must have been mid 50s... most of this water had been sitting in the swamp for a while before it over flows and becomes the creek, so it is not bone chilling cold by any means.

[Michael Wolfe]

Michael, do you know what the pH and hardness is in that system? I've got a little native tank brewing with some coastal plain stuff. I might have to try and talk you into sending me a few of those for giggles if they would work together

Todd

Are you kidding? I didn't even measure temperature (and even an engineer can read a thermometer!). I certainly don't have the ability to check pH and hardness. Maybe Uncle Willie will jump in and tell us (he lives right around here). This is the headwaters of a creek that is a direct trib to the Middle Oconee, if that tells you anything.

As far as sending you fish, just let me know...

[Michael Wolfe]

Well as you can see here, everyone is fine in the 75 gallon tank. Even colored up a little bit...not sure if that is temperature, playing in the current, or more food (there certainly weren't a lot of bugs falling in the stream in the winter time). But they seem fine after the overnight-in-a-bucket-with-a-sponge acclimation.

Please ignore the dirty tank I didn't expect to take this video, but with people partially colored up and playing around after being in the tank only over night, I got inspired.

Yellowfins at Christmas with special guest appearances from the new juv. bluehead (also new as of yesterday) and a big ole out of color turquoise darter.

Christmas Yellowfins click to go to youtube... I am not sure how to embed these the way Erica does...