Susan and I went out by ourselves again today, and neither one of us fell in, not even a little bit!  NOR did either of us fall down any embankments, or do any other type of falling. 

I could see fish everywhere, zipping ahead of us, or under rocks.  We caught a bunch, mostly just 2-5 at a time in the net... until we were just walking back upstream, kind of half-haphazardly dragging the net between us and totally NOT paying attention- then we looked down and saw our biggest haul of the day in the net.  Go figure.

We kept catching these shiner-type fish we couldn't find in Susan's book, and we got LOTS of blackside darters, and another darter we aren't sure what it is.  Ohhhh TOooooOOOOODDDD!!!!  Susan will be along to post pix in the not-so-distant future!

I kept seeing these biggish fish, and Susan was fairly certain I was seeing things, but I managed to chase some into the net and I WASN'T crazy!  She said they were some kind of chub.

And I seem to be a genius for finding where crawdads hide, even though i keep thinking I'm going to be finding fish.

I've got my new darters and possibly log rollers and the not-sure-which fish drip acclimating now and hope to add them to the rest of the gang in the native tank tonight.

I'm delighted to have found a friend who enjoys this stuff!

Yeah with the removal of the Secor dam, this year is NUTS.  Previously, I could have guessed what would have been there.  But now it's all bets off until I see a picture.  :)

I guess I need to get out there and sample.  There's probably a mess of species undocumented in my work previously up there that'll make a nice part of the story when we go to publish the work. 

Todd

farmertodd said :

Yeah with the removal of the Secor dam, this year is NUTS.  Previously, I could have guessed what would have been there.  But now it's all bets off until I see a picture.  :)

I guess I need to get out there and sample.  There's probably a mess of species undocumented in my work previously up there that'll make a nice part of the story when we go to publish the work. 

Todd

The mystery darter patterning is very like that of the orange throats- which leads me to wonder if they actually ARE orange throats that are used to being amongst darker rocks, so are showing darker than mine, whose substrate is mostly sand with just a smattering of rocks.

My mud minnows are all about checking out the newcomers(they're not nearly as shy now that they're not the freshmen!), while the log perch are horrified at the invasion. 

farmertodd said :

Yeah with the removal of the Secor dam, this year is NUTS.  Previously, I could have guessed what would have been there.  But now it's all bets off until I see a picture.  :)

I guess I need to get out there and sample.  There's probably a mess of species undocumented in my work previously up there that'll make a nice part of the story when we go to publish the work. 

Todd

a dam on Secor?  Are we talking about Secor in Toledo?   If it was a huge local landmark, excuse my ignorance, as I am still learning about NW Ohio

hillbillyracin said :

a dam on Secor?  Are we talking about Secor in Toledo?   If it was a huge local landmark, excuse my ignorance, as I am still learning about NW Ohio

I was going to say I don't either, but then I remembered one.  Is it the dam they just took out by UT?

farmertodd said :

Yeah with the removal of the Secor dam, this year is NUTS.  Previously, I could have guessed what would have been there.  But now it's all bets off until I see a picture.  :)

We saw a lot of different fish.  I have some good pictures and some crummy pictures.  I've been staring at pictures of silvery little fish until they all look the same.  I even have my watershed list to narrow it down, and the more I look, the more confuseder I get.

farmertodd said :

I guess I need to get out there and sample.  There's probably a mess of species undocumented in my work previously up there that'll make a nice part of the story when we go to publish the work. 

Todd

Oooo!  Oooo!  (holds hand up)  Take me!?!! 

pundam said :

I kept seeing these biggish fish, and Susan was fairly certain I was seeing things, but I managed to chase some into the net and I WASN'T crazy!  She said they were some kind of chub.

Oh, I believed you.  I just can't see that well.  My optometrist says I have 'inefficient pupils'.  I thought they looked like creek or river chubs.

pundam said :

I'm delighted to have found a friend who enjoys this stuff!

ME TOO!!!! 

Okay, here's some pictures.  I'll take some of the fish in my tanks later.  I haven't photographed the darters at all yet.  We got blacksides and orangethroats and/or greensides.  We brought home some fish I thought were juvenile stonerollers, but now I'm not sure.  Darn it!  I know I shouldn't bring home fish I can't identify, but I was sure, then.

Here's the catch of the day, a big chub/shiner/minnow:

A largemouth bass I think:

And our biggest haul of crayfish:

Top is a creek chub, yes, that's a largemouth bass, and now you've got me worried that we've witnessed the fastest expansion of round gobies known in these here parts, there are no greensides in the Ottawa for some unexplained reason.  Do the "darters" have a fused pelvic fin? 

And yeah, the Secor dam is the dam removed last fall near UT just upstream where the Ottawa goes under Secor Road. 

Todd

farmertodd said :

Top is a creek chub, yes, that's a largemouth bass, and now you've got me worried that we've witnessed the fastest expansion of round gobies known in these here parts, there are no greensides in the Ottawa for some unexplained reason.  Do the "darters" have a fused pelvic fin? 

Todd

Wow!  I identified two fish!  And no, they aren't round gobies, I'm sure of that.  They are juvenile darters and I'm unsure of my limited identification skills.  Greensides are on my watershed list.  What's that saying about a little knowledge being dangerous? Here's one.  I think it's an orangethroat.

Here's a fish I thought was a stoneroller, but now it's mouth doesn't look right to me.  It looks more like a sucker.  Very camera shy.  Fish are worse than children when it comes to cooperating for pictures.

And last, here's a little silvery shiner/minnow/chub I brought home by accident.

schambers said :

Okay, here's some pictures. I'll take some of the fish in my tanks later. I haven't photographed the darters at all yet. We got blacksides and orangethroats and/or greensides. We brought home some fish I thought were juvenile stonerollers, but now I'm not sure. Darn it! I know I shouldn't bring home fish I can't identify, but I was sure, then.

Here's the catch of the day, a big chub/shiner/minnow:

A largemouth bass I think:

And our biggest haul of crayfish:

Pfew, good.  I thought my system resilience hypothesis was out the door  :)

The darter looks like a big johnny darter.  The middle is a white sucker.  The 3rd one, I need to see it's head better.  That could be 5 different things  :)

Todd