There's a little creek not 3 minutes from my house that I've managed never to visit before today. It just isn't very accessible, with just a dirt turnoff behind the fire department that may or may not be public land, and no real parking to speak of. I finally got around to checking it out, and I was amazed. The water was less than six inches deep for most of what I could see, with a couple pools no more than 30 inches at most. It's about 20 feet wide, and the water is quite warm of course, being so shallow. It's probably 95 degrees or more in the shallows today.

It doesn't flow very fast, and the nutrient loading was very high. There was lots of hair algae floating in great big clumps on the surface and anchored everywhere on the bottom. Walking up to it I thought I would find nothing more than mosquito fish. The diversity blew my mind.

Here's what I came up with in under an hour with just a dipnet:
Anguilla rostrata
Elassoma zonatum (only saw two of these, in awkward places to sample)
Gambusia affinis
Heterandria formosa (biggest I've ever seen)
Lepomis humilis (I think - a welcome change from all the dang blugills I keep catching!)
Poecillia latipinna

Plus 2-4 species I didn't recognize (one looked like a goby, the second was some sort of sucker about an inch long and fairly abundant, the third I believe were very young sunfish fry, but not sure, and the fourth I saw but couldn't net - superficially resembled juvenile smallmouth bass but really couldn't have been in this water), at least three species of larval amphibians, crawdads, tons of mussels that appeared to be more than one species, and some turtles. No catfish or darters though. All in all, better than one new species every 7 minutes if you only count the fish.

Interesting little community. I would guess that your sunfish is actually spotted sunfish, Lepomis punctatus since L. humilis doesn't occur in SC.

Putative orangespotted sunfish could also be the eastern dollar sunfish.

What did the mollies look like? Any pics

I am very jealous of your find. I wish I could find a score like that (or the manitoba equivalent). I would love to see some pictures of the creek and fish. I too live near a canal that I never went to. Finally went to it the other day, and found out its got a pretty good selection too.

Nothing like this though. VERY impressive.

I may be able to go back later today with a camera. I didn't take one with me yesterday.

The mollies were fairly typical of the wild type here in SC. Out of water they have a purple sheen to them, but viewed underwater they are just washed out light silver. The dorsal fins aren't the greatest either. I like them ok and I have a few, but if I hadn't caught them myself they aren't something I would have an interest in keeping.

Lepomis marginatus does look like a better ID than my guess. Google misled me about their range I guess. I admit I latched on to the first thing that looked promising and then concentrated on the other still unidentified species. I'll try to get pictures of them too, although I only found one specimen of the "goby."

Well, I came up short of that species list today. I thought a more extensive survey would add at least Lucania goodei to my list, as the habitat seemed to be there, but I didn't find anything new and also didn't see any eels or gobies. My camera wasn't good enough to get clear pictures of the other unknowns either. I tried a different net today. Yesterday I had the one that appears in one of the pictures below, and today I was using a pool skimmer that I thought would be ideal for shallow water. It turns out not to be, since its design doesn't allow scooping from above, and the shallow rim may have allowed escapes when scooping under vegetation.

Here's a shot of the stream from up above on a high bank. This is 20 vertical feet above the water.



Here's another, standing on the bank. You can't really see the edge of the water, but the bright spot is dry land, and the creek is not more than 3 inches deep at any point at this crossing. The substrate is all bedrock. The dark patches in the stream are an aquatic moss. After a good search I did find a couple bits anchored to stones rather than directly to the streambed, so now I have some of that in my tank. Lots of amphipods in it (Gammarus sp.)



Again the diversity was impressive. Here is a fleet of tadpoles, toads I think, about 6mm total length, basking in the open not a hundred feet from where I was watching a school of sunfish that had some individuals 8 inches or more.



Speaking of sunfish, I tried my fishing pole in a pool downstream of the ppictured location. I seem to have knocked something off an overhanging branch as I walked by.



Here are some of the sunfish I hooked. Maybe somebody can give me more certainty of the ID. This picture doesn't show it very clearly, but this male has bright red on the ear flap and also around the eye.



These two I think are females of the same species. At least they were schooling together.




And finally, a pool of mudbugs. Not the same location, but continuing the theme of unexpected finds. The net pictured is 10 inches wide and about ten feet from the mud puddle.



Tonight: my sunfish eat like kings. I threw back half a dozen that were too big, but kept the ones under about 3/4" that are small enough to be eaten.



Now, I've been deathly afraid of alligators since I moved down south here, but I was nearly eaten by something else on my way back from scooping up baby crawdads. This thing was over two inches long and bigger around than my thumb, excluding the legs, and very brightly colored in a merry red and yellow to let me know it was friendly. The web you can't see is at least 3 feet in diameter, and he has two friends nearby. I nearly walked right into it.



EDIT: The fish I'm calling a goby looks like this, except the markings were brown rather than red. This is a stock photo from Google, not the actual fish, but it looks very similar. I've caught one other of the same species in another, slightly larger, creek in the Ashley watershed. Anybody want to venture a guess as to what might look like this in my area, caught in full freshwater (not even tidal)?

http://i261.photobuc...zeiger/goby.jpg

Edited by gzeiger, 20 August 2009 - 04:00 PM.

That's a neat litle stream there. That's great that you are getting many different fish.
I don't know if I should even try to name your sunnies. But I'll take a stab. Your first one is no doubt a hybrid, but of what, I don't know. The large mouth looks greenish, but I can't figure out the rest. The orange spots on the side reminds me more of p-seed than redbreast, but thats a guess. Your second one appears to be bluegill. The last is very washed out, but has the typical shape and proportions of a redbreast.

You last fish is likely a Fat Sleeper.

Edited by UncleWillie, 20 August 2009 - 04:25 PM.

Your last fish is a fat sleeper (dormitator maculatus)
Search it on google images.

The first sunfish is a redear, second is a bluegill and third appears to be very washed out redbreast. I would love to hit this spot with you when we make it back down that way. We have searched down there and never caught a fat sleeper. We have taken naked, seaboard and freshwater gobies, but never any of the sleepers even though I know they must be all around us when we're there. We will try to make it back down that way towards the end of September or beginning of October.

I learned that if you find a creek that has the sleepers they should be pretty abundant.

GZ, cool looking stream and nice find. Can I volunteer myself to go there with you? LOL.

The first sunfish is a redear

Ah! What was I thinking!

I love that area, but have only gotten very limited time in the waters near Charleston. I'd like to get back down there and see all those great fishies yall have - I have never seen a fat sleeper. I think they're beauts!

Ah! What was I thinking!

I love that area, but have only gotten very limited time in the waters near Charleston. I'd like to get back down there and see all those great fishies yall have - I have never seen a fat sleeper. I think they're beauts!

Let me know when you come back down this way. We have lots of great fish on the way to the coast as well.

Oddly enough, even though there are a couple of sleepers that live near here, the only place I have ever seen them is Costa Rica.

Nice stuff. keep the photos coming so we can help you ID them.

It may be a while before I can get better pictures. This site seems sensitive to disruption due to its small size, even though it's obviously a healthy system. I don't really plan on dragging my net through the marginal vegetation on a regular basis, especially this time of year when I found so many larval amphibians. I'm going to let it rest at least a month.

That's interesting to have confirmation about the bluegill. Macrochirus was my first reaction when I saw that fish, and a couple juveniles also, but one sunfish population already seemed so unlikely that I didn't really credit the possibility that there were two. I had noted two distinct schools of sunfish, but they seemed different in size and I assumed they were just different age groups.

When I do go back I'll try to take a better camera though. The remaining unknown will require a fairly good picture to ID I think, because it's just so nondescript. They were a little over an inch max size with a body shape similar to a small trout, scale pattern that looked like a molly, and a downturned mouth like a sucker. They were plain light brown, and found in floating algae at mid water, typically favoring areas with current, and fairly abundant. I did not notice any tendency for them to school. Let me know if you can do anything with that

LOL. I think I am a good at IDs, even written ones, but this one has me stumped. For now. Looking forward to a photo.

Alright, I'm building a photo tank this weekend, and I'll go back and get you some pictures. I had an even more interesting find today.

We had some quite heavy rains a couple days ago, and some areas seem to have flooded. I just found a 5 inch grass pickerel, an unknown catfish (brown bullhead I think - this is what has prompted me to make the photo tank), and probably three dozen young bluegill - mostly just a little over an inch - in literally a mud puddle that wasn't really all that close to other water. The pool was maybe 30x24 inches, and not more than 2 inches deep at any point. They must have been flooded in during the rains, but they weren't getting out.

The catfish was most likely a yellow. Browns are around but very rare. Look for the creamy chin barbels and he very broad anal fin to tell you.

I had a similar experience to your's when I was in CHarleston. I was working out in a field on Edisto a day after we had a lot of rain. THere was a low patch in the field where several rows were still flooded with water. In the rows were hundreds of mummichogs that were trapped there from a tidal creek nearby.

I look forward to your photos. I also look forward to making it back down your way soon.

Just to be a jerk and outdo you all :
one time when an old lagoon was being partially drained near my home, I noticed a ten inch sucker dead in the ditch. I went there later with a net to see what else was there. Here's the scene: a low water narrow ditch that ends where a pipe about 6 inches in diameter comes out from the ground perpendicular to it (this pipe was the drain for the lagoon) There was a 3 foot diameter pool of water below the pipe about 10-12 inches deep. water was constantly flowing from the pipe. In that pool of water my friend and I caught common carp, white suckers, quillback, creek chubs, brown bullhead, black bullhead, stickleback, fathead minnows, redbelly dace, possibly a mudminnow if I remember. the carp were less than 6 inches except for one 13 incher. The bullhead ranged from 6 to 12 inches, the suckers were all around 5-6 inches, the quillback were 2 inches. Talk about really weird. and there was a LOT of fish. never happened since. How does that happen????

Anyways, I really look forward to your pictures. I hope your unidentified thing returns so we can all see it.

Good luck

Edited by Burbot, 03 September 2009 - 05:41 PM.