Saturday, Justin from MA (Bumpylemon), Josh from NH (Firstchaos) and Dave (a co-worker here in NY) joined me for some collecting. It was Dave's first experience with natives. He really enjoyed himself but wisely took none home as he values his fancy guppies. We met at Dunkin Donuts about 9:30 AM and took my van to the first site at the Esperence fishing access site on the Schoharie creek. This trip was a make-up for one planned for last Saturday which was cancelled due to a week of way too much rain. The flow at the nearby Burtonsville station had gone up to over 11,000 cf/s from a more seasonal of 500-700 cf/s and 4.5 feet gage height from normal 1.5. It had dropped by this Saturday to under 1,000 cf/s and under 2 feet gage height. Both vary widely and quickly dependent on weather conditions.

Water levels were still higher then our visit earlier this year but we were able to get in most areas except the fastest flow in the middle of the creek. There were sufficient shallow riffles to pick up all the potential darters and plenty of minnows and shiners in the slack areas. We did pick up some different species not found on our earlier visit. The biggest surprize was large numbers of 1-2 inch trout perch, which I have found here twice before but each time a single specimen. This time just a few runs through a deeper slackwater area yielded hundreds. I noticed later that a number of these had whitish gray spots or clumps a result somehow of the recent flooding ??? Also found but not unexpected were several 2 inch small mouth bass and 15 to 20 Spotfin shiner the larger of which were displaying breeding coloration and fat bellies. We also did find rosyface shiners again though when Spotfins are found there seems to be lower numbers of the Rosyface shiners. Not sure if thats really the case or if it is why. Here's the list as best I can recall:

Greenside Darters - lots of small inch long juveniles and larger 3-5 inch adults, none inbetween
Log Perch - lots of small 1.25 -1.75 inch long juveniles and larger 4-5 inch adults, none inbetween
Fantail Darters - just small ones 1-1.5 inchers
Tesselated Darters - just small ones under 1.5 inches

Spotfin Shiners
Roseyface Shiners
Fat head Minnows
Fallfish
Black Nose Dace
Long Nose Dace

Stonecats
Common Suckers
Trout Perch
Smallmouth Bass

Then we headed to Fox creek to show Dave what a Rainbow Darter looked like but could only find young one inch and under specimens as the water was still a bit high and we didn't want to make a difficult trek to more riffles when most of what we find here was already sampled in Schoharie Creek.

Greenside Darters
Log Perch
Fantail Darters
Tesselated Darters
Rainbow Darters

Spotfin Shiners
Roseyface Shiners
Fat head Minnows
Fallfish
Black Nose Dace
Long Nose Dace
Common Suckers

We headed east on RT 443 to get some lunch at Jersys a little country burger/ice cream place in East Berne. Justin loves the Lemonade they carry. After enjoying our lunch under the pavilion we were only a couple minutes from the best spot I know of to seine beaver. Here josh showed what he's made of not hesitating to stick the seine pole under that same bank that produced our beaver in a net last time out. Though he did let me go first where there was no escape route and he had open, shallow water behind him.

Here the water seemed lower then normal but I think what really had happened was the floods had filled in the deeper pools with sand and silt. Perhaps the result of the decrease in tree cover. The good news is there didn't seem to be any beaver activity and their dams were in disrepair and the stream more open again. I imagine a few more floods will wash out some of the deeper pools again as the brush was exploding stream side.

Tesselated Darters - various sizes
Fantail Darter - juveniles
Redside Dace
Long Nose Dace
Black Nose Dace
Common Shiners
Fall Fish
Fathead Minnows
Golden Shiners
Cutlips Minnows
Creek Chubs - some huge males almost a foot long with mouths big enough to fit my finger in about .75 inch in diameter
Common Suckers
Northern Hog Suckers
Pumpkinseed Sunfish - mostly 1.25 inch with nice colors and a couple 2-3 inchers
Brook Stickleback - just one 1.75 incher

Also found a few cool looking two tone Green frogs with very pretty green head and top half of the body with a dark brown from just above the waist down.

Finally we headed to just above New Salem to a small brook where I sometimes find Central Mudminnows, Brook Sticklebacks, Creek Chubs, Blacknose Dace, Long Nose Dace, Pearl Dace, Northern Redbelly Dace, Common Suckers, and Northern Hog Suckers. The creek is heavily shaded and is usually sparsely vegetated but this time it seemed scoured clean. Finding fish was difficult except for these few:

Creek Chubs
Black Nose Dace
Long Nose Dace
Common Suckers
Northern Hog Suckers - only saw two
Brook Sticklebacks - several juveniles in brush and litter

After a quick run back to Dunkin Donuts and transfer of fish, nets and good byes we were all on our ways home after a full day of adventure.

Edited by keepnatives, 09 August 2009 - 03:33 PM.

nice read i had a great time. the logperch and the greensides i got are huge

I had a great time too, I got a 20 gallon today (still need to buy gravel and filter for it) as my main tank is looking like one of those overcrowded baitshop minnow tanks now. Oddly enough not much squabbling happened between the minnows this time I added more.

I love the greenish sheen of my spotfins side as it reflects the tanks flourescent light.

I hope the new fatheads will help calm my male Petco fathead who is in full on, dark color and agression, breeding mode, i'm not sure though as my last trip in may to NY showed the fatheads their were in breeding mode and most native fish I know of spawn once a year.

You summed up the fish nicely, you forgot the tiny largemouth we found at the last location though.

Also this trip I had my first run in with a leech, it wasn't nearly as awful as I thought though. The anethetics of their bite made it unfeelable until hours after it was removed. I still dread a run in with a sea lamprey... that's one bloodsucker i do not want biting me (I know someone whose sister was bit by one... *shudder* this is one native I will not help you feed).