{Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Re: Small stream sampling

On Saturday, March 18, 2017 at 6:04:16 PM UTC-4, TurbineBlade wrote:

For those with interest in non-fishing aspects of local waters, I thought I'd share a quick "sample" report from the 38F water in my backyard stream.  

Winter collecting is not too different from winter fishing, in that the fish are definitely there but you need to put a bit of thought into where they might be.  In my experience they are NOT in the same places in the winter as they are in the summer, that's for sure.  

In a couple of hours I managed:

6 tesselated darters

8 blacknose dace

1-2 tiny redbreast sunfish

3 plethodontid salamanders (I can't key the non-Missouri species beyond family)

countless swallowtail shiners

cranefly larvae

chironomids

1 damselfly larva

1 fairfax county library card

(I kept a subset of the above for my 25gal cube -- acclimating from 38F to 72F takes time!)

I finally purchased the "perfect dipnet" which is pricey, but WAYYYY better than any other "self" net I've ever used for this purpose.  Usually 1-2 strong riffles will destroy a typical net.  

Fun stuff folks -- there's nothing more pro-American than keeping and appreciating our native darters.  God I miss the rainbows I could get within 1 mile of Missouri State campus.  

Gene

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http://www.tpfr.org
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