Big South Fork 2016 Fish & Fungi
#1
Posted 14 September 2016 - 05:17 PM
Chattanooga, near the TN Divide on BlueFishRidge overlooking South Chickamauga Creek.
#3
Posted 15 September 2016 - 05:01 AM
"No thanks, a third of a gopher would merely arouse my appetite..."
#6
Posted 18 September 2016 - 04:56 PM
Is that the O&W bridge outside of Oneida? Been at least 15 years since I was there. Camped back there under a rockhouse, and saw my first spotted skunk. Quite a different critter than a striped skunk. The road back to there is really neat as I recall. Interesting to drive the old railroad cut.
The member formerly known as Skipjack
#7
Posted 23 September 2016 - 10:36 AM
Ramps. We have the annual Polk County Ramp Festival down by Greasy Creek not too far from the Conasauga River. A Spring Tonic. Lots of folks hunt them and over harvesting would be a negative, so sites are quietly guarded. You can volunteer but it is a lot of steep mountainside walking.
Channel Darters are wide ranging, yet in isolated regions. A mystery as to why the populations are so disconnected. It is nice to see a group moving in mass.
O&W... one and the same. A few details are in the weekend account. We drove the old railroad bed for miles til it dead ended at the bedrock creek ford.
The weekend continues...
Edited by Casper, 23 September 2016 - 11:10 AM.
Chattanooga, near the TN Divide on BlueFishRidge overlooking South Chickamauga Creek.
#8
Posted 23 September 2016 - 11:32 AM
Chattanooga, near the TN Divide on BlueFishRidge overlooking South Chickamauga Creek.
#10
Posted 03 October 2016 - 03:35 PM
Thanks James. I only got one reasonable fish photo from that day but it is very glarish. I also got this other shot and though the Chub's head is cut off it shows a bit of the "canyon's" beauty i was getting settled into... before the waders moved into my zone of comfort and clarity. It would have been nice to work the canyon for quite awhile. Very pretty but a minimalist site, being very little room to maneuver.
Edited by Casper, 03 October 2016 - 03:39 PM.
Chattanooga, near the TN Divide on BlueFishRidge overlooking South Chickamauga Creek.
#12
Posted 29 November 2016 - 08:34 PM
In the Chattanooga newspaper the other day, the Times Free Press, featured on the front page a story about the Laurel Dace... a fish i mentioned in the trip report above. Drought conditions, which thankfully are being relieved as of yesterday, warranted the "rescue" of whatever individuals a few seiners could catch from the drying streams. It is good to see conservationist concerns printed on our front page, but terrible this drought has been so extended.
Years ago i snorkeled with these dace, interested and motivated by the site being just a few miles from our family farm on the Cumberland Plateau. I worked myself into frustration that day jabbing a dipnet for over an hour into the sharp rocked culvert outlet hoping to catch one of these dace. Etnier had mentioned them in his new book and being so close to the farm i wanted to see one for myself. Finally exhausted from all the hunched over thrashing i stood up, and re-evaluated all the unsightly trash thrown into the pool from passing cars overhead. "What the heck" i decided and put on my mask and snorkel, laid in the water and lo and behold was instantly circled by Laurel Dace! I caught a couple to study but they died, soon covered with a white cottony fungus. an interesting fish to observe but i was just learning then and could not care for them properly. While in a 10 gallon tank the pair circled each other in a rapid fashion, perhaps some kind of spawning desire. Ashamed of my failure i finally revisited the site a few years later. Unfortunately the property owner across the street had built a high dam blocking the stream on his side of the road. I laid in the same culvert pool and could not find a single dace. Not giving up i walked for a precarious mile downstream laying in every small pool that was big enough to lay in. Nothing. I suspect and fear the dam builder abruptly blocked the flowing water, thus drying the small stream bed up as his desired lake filled.
Hopefully i will give it another try in the future or check on some of the other nearby streams we played in during our youth. Several other locations have been found since, well beyond this site, running quite a ways northward on the plateau.
Chattanooga, near the TN Divide on BlueFishRidge overlooking South Chickamauga Creek.
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