I would imagine many NANFA adventures start with the exact same story but I hope to share what Mark Hylton and I experienced while on our trip.

Much equipment planning before the trip even began. Cameras needed cleaned and fitted to their new cases, new nets had to be brailed and floated, food had to be planned and packed and all the camping gear had to sorted and somehow fit into my car. With all of the equipment planning, we lacked a single site to actually see fish which had me concerned. My efforts yielded only a single site so I had to get cracking on likely locations since I only had a vision of the fish we wanted to see. After many evenings pouring over dot maps, descriptions and the Missouri Gazetteer, we had the best plan we could muster. It’s generally a bad idea in my opinion to spend hundreds of dollars in food, gas, and licensing without sites but we figured the scenery alone would be worth the trip.

We started out after work on Tuesday evening to begin our much needed trip to find some of the fish in the Ozarks. We drove straight through to Southwest Missouri near the town of Mt. Vernon in the Spring River drainage. Without national parks in the area, camping was limited so we stayed the night in a no-tell motel which is often an adventure in and of itself. Despite being amped up to go fishing in the morning we managed a short but good night sleep. We loaded up with water for the photo tanks, checked out and grabbed some damn weak coffee to get me going to the first site.

Our first “drive over” look at water in the Spring river was a small spring creek feeding a larger tributary near the Newton/Barry county line but not especially inviting so we headed to our primary target which turned to be quite a bit larger than we expected. This made us hunt further and further upstream until we had access. We finally found access and eagerly jumped in the water to find some pretty neat fish but not our targets.

Campostoma anomalum Central Stoneroller
Luxilus cardinalis Cardinal Shiner
Nocomis asper Redspot Chub
Notropis rubellus Rosyface Shiner
Notropis nubilus Ozark Minnow
Pimephales notatus Bluntnose Minnow
Fundulus olivaceus Blackspotted Topminnow
Gambusia affinis Western Mosquitofish
Cottus carolinae Banded Sculpin
Etheostoma blennioides Greenside Darter
Etheostoma flabellare Fantail Darter
Etheostoma spectabile Orangethroat Darter
Etheostoma stigmaeum Speckled Darter



Pretty quickly into this stop while kicking a snarled root mass, Marks face was filled with the terror only a guy with a giant hole in his waders gets. He toughed it out while in the water but once we got to the car, we could see his boots suffered a pretty serious gash. That’s right….first stop on the first day of our trip and we have wader failure in early spring! My first thought is to head back 200-300 miles where we remember seeing a giant catalog sporting goods store but that would clearly blow an entire day. We asked ourselves if Walmart might have waders that could last a trip and then Mark (AKA MacGyver) pulls out a tube of shoe goo. Mark carefully gobs on some shoe goo, we both cross our fingers and pack up our gear. Since we didn’t get what we had hoped for, we decided not to waste time with photos and get a move on to the next stop.

At the second stop, Mark jumped right it the water without much hesitation even though his waders were still in the car with the repair drying. He must have froze his butt off but I don’t recall much complaining until water reached new body parts as expected. The water here was quite clear with fist sized rocks and larger of various color, slab rock with strong current and slow, large pools as well. It didn’t look like much at first but we did pretty well here.
We worked what was essentially a wide waterfall and found many brightly colored Banded and Greenside darters. In shallow water we found a good many Orangethroat darters and isolated pools off to the side were filled with topminnows. Up until then we had not found the Arkansas or Stippled darters until eagle eyed Mark spotted some movement in a tiny trickle from the hillside. He called me over and sure enough he had found Arkansas darters. We worked the trickle up and found a series or warm, shallow pools on slab rock which had not only Arkansas darters but also a fantastic Least darter. Now I catch plenty of Least darters back home, but this is nothing like where I would see them. Sure, plenty of vegetation was present but in such a tiny micro habitat. I’m not sure what Least darters are doing all the way out here.

Campostoma anomalum Central Stoneroller
Chrosomus erythrogaster Southern Redbelly Dace
Luxilus cardinalis Cardinal Shiner
Nocomis asper Redspot Chub
Notropis rubellus Rosyface Shiner
Notropis nubilus Ozark Minnow
Pimephales notatus Bluntnose Minnow
Fundulus olivaceus Blackspotted Topminnow
Cottus carolinae Banded Sculpin
Lepomis cyanellus Green Sunfish
Lepomis macrochirus Bluegill
Lepomis megalotis Longear Sunfish
Etheostoma blennioides Greenside Darter
Etheostoma cragini Arkansas Darter
Etheostoma microperca Least Darter
Etheostoma flabellare Fantail Darter
Etheostoma spectabile Orangethroat Darter
Etheostoma zonale Banded Darter
This was a great stop and one I’ll not soon forget but we did not yet find Stippled darters so we headed off the that first creek we eyed and once again hunted access.

Notropis nubilus Ozark Minnow



Luxilus cardinalis Cardinal Shiner




Fundulus olivaceus Blackspotted Topminnow



Lepomis megalotis Longear Sunfish


More from this site in the next post.

Etheostoma cragini Arkansas Darter female




Etheostoma cragini Arkansas Darter male




Etheostoma microperca Least Darter



Etheostoma zonale Banded Darter



Etheostoma spectabile Orangethroat Darter

Without too much effort we found a quite place to slip into the water. I think at this point Mark still was without waders and again no complaints about the frigid water. This small stream was quite cold but clearer than the first two stops. Tiny fast riffles and deep pools with steep banks kept us from traveling too far in the stream but we did find our Stippled darter. Behind a large fallen tree was a shoal of tiny rubble almost small enough to be called sand and a quiet inlet filled with rotting leaf debris and other fine matter. We found more Arkansas darters and our first Stippled darter. We were loosing daylight and hoped to sample the North Fork of the spring river and still make to the James River in the White system that day. We quickly took photos and made the decision to Skip the North Fork and head out to the James River to find our first Yoke Darter.

Campostoma anomalum Central Stoneroller
Cottus carolinae Banded Sculpin
Etheostoma cragini Arkansas Darter
Etheostoma flabellare Fantail Darter
Etheostoma punctulatum Stippled Darter


Etheostoma punctulatum Stippled Darter



My first impression of the James river was “Man that is some fast and deep stuff. No way we can wade that this time of year” . So once again we had to hunt water and the biggest water we could wade since the Fishes of Missouri indicated that Yoke darters were a “medium river” kind of fish. We found a small trib (at least it looked small on the map) and it was beautiful. Large wide riffles of very small uniform rock that you would sink into while wading. We worked here for a while finding many Rainbow and Orangethroat darters as well as our first sighting of Luxilus pilsbryi Duskystripe Shiner but the riffles weren’t deep enough for Yoke darters apparently so off to another site we went. By this time the sun was really low and we had to hustle if we were to find any Yoke darters. This last stop looked like it was deep for sure and fast as well so we got out of the car and carefully approached the deep riffle. I know by this time Mark had his fully functioning although still wet waders Before we could actually net this riffle I had bit off more than I could chew as far as this riffle was concerned and was taken a bit downstream while I swam as best I could for shore. I didn’t lose any equipment but I’m fairly certain some of my pride went downstream at this site. Mark and I came up with a new strategy for this riffle and sure enough we found many small Yoke darters in water so deep and fast other darters were not to be found. With light almost gone we hurriedly photographed our undersized prize and then plotted course to our campsite. I can’t wait to return to Missouri when the water levels are lower.


Etheostoma juliae Yoke Darter


We had a long drive to Mark Twain national forest in Texas county and by the time we arrived it was well past sunset. We began to unpack the car and were greeted by a hunter who had failed to reduce the local feral hog population that day. After a pleasant exchange with the hunter and a quick meal by flashlights on cold, cold plates, Mark decided to go for a walk on this particularly dark night. I made sure camp was cleaned up for the night and my sleeping gear was in order then headed off for a walk myself. It wasn’t long before I heard the rumble of thunder and a very large and loud animal in the woods that I presume it was a hog that eluded the hunter. We slept hard that night and awoke before dawn to get a good start on the day.

very nice work for sure!
E cragini Arkansas Darter
E juliae Yoke Darter
E zonale Banded Darter
what can i say but i need some of those. sweet!!!

Cool, love that banded darter!!

They sure are pretty fish. I think E. cragini are fed candidates and I guess I should mention that as always I catch photo and immediately release fish into the waters from which they came.

I uh forgot to mention that we caught a really neat leech in the Spring River system and thought I'd both show it off and someone here might be able to ID it. It protected it's young surprisingly well (not that we were trying to harm them).

Leech looks like a Placobdella Sp. Uland... Likely Ornata but it is tricky for sure. These are usually Turtle feeders..

This make me really mad that I did not do my homework before I threw green sunnies in my tank. I would have loved to have different darters/minnows and such. but anything else I try to put in the tank gets eaten.

Beautiful Leech photo--Nice Job!

Nice photos Uland!! Love the banded and orangethroat darters!!!

Thanks for the ID help Richard and thanks for the kind words Andrew. Sonix, don't worry, you have plenty of time to sort out which direction you want to go with as far as tank inhabitants. I think most of us learned a bit by trial and error.

I'll continue with the trip report below:

We awoke before dawn to a dry tent and most of the wet clothing I hung out late the previous night had nearly dried. We took a little walk but this time with the sun trying to creep over the horizon and enjoyed the many dogwoods in bloom at the occasional persimmon while flipping logs along the way in hopes of seeing a few herps. We quickly ate some eggs and packed up the gear anxiously awaiting our first glimpse of the Gasconade river (Big Piney River to be more specific).

We arrived in the upper reaches of the Big Piney River to find high but surprisingly clear water considering the water level.




Without wasting much time we spotted quite a few fish but not the Missouri Saddled or the Bluestripe Darter. We worked riffles to find many Rainbow Darters but found much of the small rock riffles were far to deep and swift to keep our footing. We worked some nearby flooded pools without noticeable flow and found many Northern studfish and Orangethroat darters. We found quite a bit of vegetation and worked every square inch for Bluestripe darters without any luck. We then stomped anything close to what was described as suitable cover again without any luck. This took us far more time than we expected and admitted failure on this fish so we set off on foot upstream in hopes we could find Missouri Saddled Darters. Along the way we sampled Bleeding Shiners and Ozark Minnows from a sandy pool. We could see a large riffle a bit upstream and a large slack water area that is likely dry most of the year and decided it was worth a try. We found again many Rainbow darters in the riffle but it wasn’t the best depth or substrate so we sampled the nearby slack water to find many more Studfish and Gambusia. We were pretty disappointed that we had not found either of out target fish and didn’t particularly want to drive around again hunting access for the river so we poked around a bit more upstream. We carefully worked the head of a deep riffle to find a whole lot of nothing in deeper water but many Rainbow Darters and Cottus the shallower we sampled. This continued for hundreds of attempts until we found a female Arkansas darter in very loose substrate in water deep and fast enough to almost sweep us away. She provided us with enough adrenaline for maybe a couple hundred more attempts, just enough to find a brightly colored male to accompany her in the photo library. We walked back to the car and unpacked the photo equipment which attracted a group of curious fishermen. Mark and I had a great exchange with the guys about what we’re doing and why and then we started to put the fish in the photo tanks. As I’ve grown used to, there were many words of delight and surprise for the unveiling of the fish we found right under the noses of experienced anglers in water they were very familiar with. I always enjoy gabbing in these situations and this group of guys were not only fun but far more aware of their river than most we encounter.





Unfortunately the Missouri Saddled Darters behaved much like Greenside Darters in that they refuse to erect fins while in the photo tank but at least we were able to see them.

Great story!
Sounds like a fun trip.
Trip over any of those pretty copperheads they got out there?

Thanks Jason, the fish were in color and well behaved in the photo tank....the secret to good photos:smile2:
Mike, I would have been pretty happy to see one (and photograph it) but we weren't lucky enough to see any.

On with the latter part of our second day of sampling.

Mark and I were ready for smaller water and I wanted to see the Gasconade population of stippled darters so we headed upstream and hunted for a small tributary of the Big Piney River. As we all know it can take an hour or better to find a spot to get in he water and it finally dawned on me why I was having such a hard time gauging the water size in comparison to the maps….the ground is so porous compared to home, I had to readjust my thinking. In any case, we finally found a nice spot after lots of backtracking and found some beautiful water.



We worked riffles to find:
Etheostoma flabellare Fantail Darter
Etheostoma caeruleum Rainbow Darter
Etheostoma zonale Banded Darter
Etheostoma blennioides Greenside Darter
Noturus exilis Slender Madtom
Cottus

In pools we found:
Campostoma anomalum Central Stoneroller
Notropis nubilus Ozark Minnow
Fundulus catenatus Northern Studfish
Fundulus olivaceus Blackspotted Topminnow
Ambloplites rupestris Rock Bass
Lepomis cyanellus Green Sunfish
Chrosomus erythrogaster Southern Redbelly Dace
Luxilus zonatus Bleeding Shiner

Etheostoma spectabile Orangethroat Darter were found in shallower riffles and occasionally in with the Rainbow darters. We found a good number of Etheostoma punctulatum Stippled Darter among shoreline debris and undercut banks with wood and leaf litter but always singly and far apart.

Etheostoma caeruleum Rainbow Darter



Etheostoma spectabile Orangethroat Darter



Etheostoma punctulatum Stippled Darter


This was truly a pretty site and we really worked our butts off to find very little in the Big Piney and worked almost as hard to succeed in finding some pretty fish in this little trib. We set up the photo equipment to be greeted by a very nice family who was also from Illinois once upon a time. We showed off the fish and received the usual responses of delight. They later explained they were land owners and very pleased we had taken the time to not only show off the fish in their creek put to also take photos.

Once we were done with photos, the light was dwindling and we had to decide where to camp next to get close to Jacks Fork River for the following day. We selected a campsite with water nearby in hopes we might be able to fish a little once we set up camp. While driving we could not help but notice the change in landscape to steep hillsides and acute ridges as we headed south. The rocks, soil and trees even appeared to change on this relatively short drive. We arrived at the campsite to find a local creek had been dammed to form a lake for recreational reasons which made the stream we camped next to that much less appealing. The well used grounds had a bit to be desired but the campground was quiet and the scenery was nice. We did the usual routine where Mark set up the tent and I prepared dinner just in time to try and catch the monstrous Luxilus in the creek that I presume to be our first sighting of Striped Shiners. My 1/32 ounce jig was not going to fool these wary minnows and their true identity will remain a secret. We took a late night walk with flashlights once again in hopes of finding a critter or two and then headed to our sleeping bags for the evening.

Beautiful stuff Uland and Mark. You guys got to see some beautiful parts of Missouri and I appreciate living vicariously through the photos. Richard is definitely right on that ID; I believe I have found leeches of the same genus on Ambystomatids; however, never ran across any actively nurturing their young. Wonderful photos, I think the E. spectabile, E. craigi, and the leech photos are my favorite. Nice panoramas too!

Keep em' coming!

Blake

Edited by blakemarkwell, 03 May 2010 - 11:27 PM.