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Central Mass With FirstChaos

Started by Guest_bumpylemon_* , May 22 2010 05:02 PM

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19 replies to this topic

#1 Guest_bumpylemon_*

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Posted 22 May 2010 - 05:02 PM

Met up with firstchaos today. we went out for banded sunfish, swamp darters, and central mudminnows. i again didnt have high hopes for the mudminnows...but low and behold i caught 3! one might i add was literally in the mud....not in the water. just living in mud. i grabbed him with my hand.

here is the mudminnow spot
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here is the mudminnows
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after leaving there we stopped at a lake in brimfield and caught some banded killifish and watched the bluegill spawning. josh broke his net....next stop...Dicks sporting goods. Josh got a new net and off we went to my swamp darter place in northbridge. josh's new net lasted maybe 3 dips. we didnt catch any swamp darters. which i was very surprised. that was the one fish that i would have promised to catch. is it possible that all the sunfish are eating them up? there seemed to be ALOT of bluegill.
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we then stopped at a baitshop just to see the shiners they had....and we did find what a native. i thought and told josh it was a green sunfish....hopefull im right. Josh paid $3.16 for it...and off we went.
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next we went to the banded sunfish spot of route 9. we caught enough banded sunfish for each of us. i also caught a 8" black bullhead with eggs coming out of her mouth. that was weird. can anyone elaborate on that? Josh also netted a snapping turtle with my new net....he decided to bite my net luckily not ripping it. i caught alot of pickerel but threw them back as they looked to be chains. pretty good day!

banded spot
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#2 Guest_bumpylemon_*

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Posted 22 May 2010 - 05:02 PM

and what we caught
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is this just a common snapper?
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and i found this dead pumpkinseed.
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#3 Guest_fundulus_*

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Posted 22 May 2010 - 05:20 PM

Bullheads and many other catfish are mouthbrooders for both the eggs and young larvae. I'd also say forget about the cheapo sporting goods store dipnets and invest in a Perfect Dipnet, you'll be happy (at least on one level!).

#4 Guest_jblaylock_*

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Posted 22 May 2010 - 08:42 PM

Are you sure that bait store fish is a green sunny? It almost looked like a juvenile SMB to me, but I could be wrong.

#5 Guest_bumpylemon_*

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Posted 22 May 2010 - 08:44 PM

Are you sure that bait store fish is a green sunny? It almost looked like a juvenile SMB to me, but I could be wrong.

Now that u say that I'm not sure. Do they usualyy have orange in them? I want someone to ID it.

#6 Guest_bumpylemon_*

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Posted 22 May 2010 - 09:24 PM

Are you sure that bait store fish is a green sunny? It almost looked like a juvenile SMB to me, but I could be wrong.

i just looked at a bunch of SMB pics and none have that black ear that the all the other sunfishes have

#7 Guest_panfisherteen_*

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Posted 22 May 2010 - 10:12 PM

im pretty sure that is a green sunfish

#8 Guest_NVCichlids_*

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Posted 22 May 2010 - 10:51 PM

beautiful bandeds! Looks like you guys had a great day! The snapper looks to be a pretty standard snapper and definately not an alligator snapper, the "green sunfish" looks like a crossbreed for me (bluegillxgreen sunnie?). all of the green sunfish around here have a little red part on the earspot (am I saying that correctly?) and this fish does not seem to have one.

That black bullhead image is quite unique! I never knew that about them.

#9 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 23 May 2010 - 05:27 AM

beautiful bandeds! Looks like you guys had a great day! The snapper looks to be a pretty standard snapper and definately not an alligator snapper, the "green sunfish" looks like a crossbreed for me (bluegillxgreen sunnie?). all of the green sunfish around here have a little red part on the earspot (am I saying that correctly?) and this fish does not seem to have one.

That black bullhead image is quite unique! I never knew that about them.

It was a very fun day. Then again I enjoy any fishing trip where I catch fish. The whole net situation annoys me though. Maybe I will get a perfect dipnet some day. (though in my opinion a perfect dip net would have a rustproof chainmail mesh net welded to the hoop, a weighted hoop to force its way down in current and a floating handle for easy recovery).

Also the eggs spit out by the bullhead quickly became sunfish food. I heard of sunfish eating fish eggs before (raiding bass nests and such) but still it was interesting.

I wish my area had the interesting "swamp fish" of the eastern drainages. Swamp darters, redfin pickerel, and banded sunfish tend not to be in the connecticut drainage.

On the topic of green sunfish having red on the gill spots. I always wondered if the redgilled lepomis (greens, pumpkinseeds, and redears) represent a special offshoot branch of lepomis. Maybe pumpkinseeds are an offshoot of redears who were isolated and became another species. (I think the red ear is the earliest known centrarchid species in the fossil record if I remember right).

Edited by FirstChAoS, 23 May 2010 - 05:31 AM.

#10 Guest_sandtiger_*

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Posted 23 May 2010 - 10:18 AM

I know some catfish are mouthbrooders but I didn't think bullheads were, everything I read about them says they nest in cavities. Perhaps it was in the process of consuming the eggs?
As for the supposed green sunfish, it is a green sunfish.

#11 Guest_fundulus_*

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Posted 23 May 2010 - 10:53 AM

My mistake, bullheads build and defend nests with several thousand egss in them, so I doubt mouthbrooding is part of that.

#12 Guest_Jan_*

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Posted 25 May 2010 - 09:13 PM

Sure looks like a greeny to me. Watch out what you put that fish with - they are ravenous and can eat surprisingly large fish for their size.

#13 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 26 May 2010 - 11:37 AM

Sure looks like a greeny to me. Watch out what you put that fish with - they are ravenous and can eat surprisingly large fish for their size.

Sadly the greeny died today,it's tail fin was chewed off a couple days ago and it was doing bad since. I put it in my 55 with my bluegill, pumpkinseed, and dollar sunfish. The pumpkinseed was doing agression displays towards it's dead body when i removed it.

#14 Guest_bumpylemon_*

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Posted 26 May 2010 - 05:20 PM

how are the banded sunnies?

#15 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 26 May 2010 - 10:50 PM

how are the banded sunnies?

they're doing just fine in the killie tank.

#16 Guest_kwheeler91_*

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Posted 13 June 2010 - 11:57 PM

maybe those are frog eggs or some other fish's eggs

#17 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 14 June 2010 - 12:39 AM

how are the banded sunnies?

Sadly last week i lost 3 of the 4 to fungus, i tried treating with the organic fungas treatment liquid with no luck, my last one got fungus today so I bought ridfungus tabs. I hope they work.

#18 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 14 June 2010 - 12:58 AM

maybe those are frog eggs or some other fish's eggs

I do not have much experience with fish eggs, but most frog eggs I see are MUCH more gelatinous and clearer in color with the darker tadpoles easilly visible within each egg.

oddly enough I just looked up brown bullhead on planet catfish and their eggs have a similar yellowish color to the eggs that catfish spit out. Could it have had eggs from its own species in its mouth? Is yellow a common color for fish eggs?

(I tried linking the image but planet catfish does not allow that)

Edited by FirstChAoS, 14 June 2010 - 12:59 AM.