Perhaps Steve and/or Bruce will post a report on our fine May 25 Little River Saturday trip. As for myself I decided to spend another day in the area. After a evening meal with president Bruce and our good bye I booked a room and did a short run to Ft. Payne for an airpump, toothbrush and clothing since I had not originally intended on staying overnight. K-mart had a nice 1 gallon acrylic tank w/ an airpump, tubing, airstone, hood and under gravel filter with the gravel for 10 bucks! It makes a good travel tank... even better if I had a lighted hood. They make a bigger one which I will check out later, perhaps its hood is lighted.

Sunday, Full Moon, May 26. That morning I ate a good country breakfast and headed to a site I had scouted before. It is at a bridge located next to an old brick African American church. While putting on my gear I meet a church elder as he was about to ring the big cast iron church bell. We talked a bit about life and growing up playing in the creeks, fishing and getting baptized in the pool just downstream. He told me the stream was much wider and had deep pools before the roads and building all pushed in its sides. I thought a lot about that during the day and mankind's impact on natural sites. He invited me to a late afternoon picnic celebrating the church's 120 year anniversary. I'm sure it would have been very good but with all my gear on I would have left quite a puddle on the dining hall's floor. I had a lot of sites I wanted to visit this beautiful day and once my gear is on it stays on. I appreciated his Christian southern hospitality with not a hint of the always media mentioned racism. Church dinners are one of the best places to get a home cooked meal and with all those pie baking ladies out to impress your in for a good meal and fellowship!

The church is right by the highway where 2 spring fed creeks converge. Clear water flows through grasses, mint, cattails and watercress tho it is a bit trashed out... as it flows though the center of this small town. Still I immediately observed lots of unknown small fry, of which I collected a few and have put them in a flowing pool next to my cement pond proper. Perhaps they will develop and I will ID them later. A single male Mountain Shiner with his hot white blue head rode the flow. A speckled Darter danced on the silty sand and plenty of Coosa Darters appeared... a very close kin to my TN Snubnoses. Big suckers or Red Horses... I still can't ID them yet lounged about. Bass and Sunfish... I didn't pay attention to which species they were as I was keen on the active shiners. A few Rainbows, Creek Chubs, Black Nose Dace and herds of Stonerollers. Lots of Striped Shiners... a few massive ones tho not much pearlescence on their bodies. I picked up a big 12" long turtle of which I don't know... kind of a yellow bellied pond slider but this turtle had red markings on his shell. Both Steve and I had both picked 2 up the day before... little baby hatchlings. He was quite content as I turned him every which away trying to gather clues for his ID later. I worked my way upstream to the convergence and lay there for a while and collected seven rainbows w/ a dipnet and watched the activity.

I drove upstream to an abandoned railroad bridge where I was able to lay in a flowing deep pool and observe peacefully. Dozens of long clawed crayfish munched on the puddled debris littering the pools floor. One move would send half a dozen tailskirting away from me. The fish soon accepted my presence and all came to investigate my actions. Full tilt Southern Studfish and their harem finwaved in the shallow distant, still a bit wary of me. Coosa darters all came to my hands, Rainbow shiners where all around but looked to be somewhat past their prime. A bit worn and tattered, the colors were kind of patchy. They were congregating but only loosely, no intensity. I wandered up and down the stream a bit watching for movements or color. Lots of fish but no spawning masses of rainbows.

I loaded up the van and headed towards Ft. Payne and the K-Mart parking lot. I had snorkeled and collected this site a few times but I had become disenchanted last year when the canopy protecting the stream had been stripped and the vegetation close cropped. Before when I was down in the gully stream I had felt sheltered from the outside world. No more, it is right in the full sun now and in plain site of K-Mart shoppers and gawkers. I had found a site downstream where this small stream joined the larger river stream. I've never been able to snorkel in the larger stream cause of the opaque green water but the little stream is excellent. Small springs continually feed the sides. This is spring country. I put my mask on and started working my way upstream. All the standard locals were there. A few Rainbows were congregating in a long, smooth gravel flow along with Stonerollers and BlackTail Shiners. They had a bit of color but nothing intense. I would have to walk up some lengths and only then be able to lay in pools just down from riffle flows. After several up and downs I came upon a few frenzied Rainbows darting about. Poking my head beyond a large boulder I was stunned... probably 20 intensely colored individuals were all jostling for position. Noses were facing downstream against the big boulder. At the base of the boulder was a Stoneroller excavating a pit... all the Rainbows noses were pointed to his workmanship. The intense individuals bodies were very hot magenta with lavender purple pectoral fins. Scattered iridescent blue flecks adorned the tops of lesser individuals. Definitely different than what I saw in the Little Shultz last year. The colors, pattern and intensity on these fish varied from individual to individual. Magenta was the color of the swarming mass as one looking down on them from the surface would see. Flecks of iridescent white blue. Amazing. I observed them quietly for 15 minutes or so and then carefully netted 3 different specimens ranging from very intense to mild. These I returned home with to observe in a tank. Sadly though one thought that I can not shake is that perhaps I am a witness to the last wonderful vestiges of these beautiful fish. How many spawning masses could have been observed here 200 years ago? The substrate was just silted up. Bank sides were step. Trash, tires, grocery carts and glass littered the sides and bottom. How pristine this must have been for hundreds and thousands of years. Every time a piece of property is developed adjacent to a stream bull dozers push the ground that much closer... building the structure's foundation up with fill dirt. Before long the meandering wide stream becomes a rutted, silt laden ditch. My feeling is that suitable spawning sites are being destroyed. In the 200 or 300 feet I walked only one site seemed suitable and I could easily observe that it was unique. One good thing though is that stonerollers are survivors and they seemed to be doing their best at nesting and clearing gravel. Often in our local urban streams they are the most plentiful along with Striped Shiners.

I loaded up and headed North towards Chattanooga and thought of other sites to take a quick look at. Near Rising Fawn there is a trout farm that is fed by a massive spring coming from a cave. Downstream of this I found several pools to lay in. Now that I was in the Tennessee River drainage I saw breeding Rosy Fin Shiners... a very stunning fish. White head, red fins, vertical zebra stripes, blueish sides and a unique body structure. A couple War Paints... great name for this shiner. Greensides, Snubs, Rainbow and some massive honcho Redline darters. A lot of diversity was here. I had suspected less cause of the potential Rainbow Trout escapees upstream. I also found a pair of unknown mussels. The visibility was not as nice as expected but I could still see a couple feet which is fine for a stream this size. I ended up collecting a medium sized Greenside and a stunning Rosy Fin male for the pool.

I stopped and looked at another creek but it was to opaque and green to jump in. I have never snorkeled here but dipnetted and seined it a few times. I'm always looking for something new and getting much better of knowing when I'm seeing something new. I have decided in the last couple of years to really know and learn my immediate region and its diversity. Outside of Chattanooga I stopped at a favorite site to collect a few Black Spotted Topminnows and some Shrimp in a quiet vegetated pond. I wanted to add these Topminnows to the pool. Last year the small pools I had set up on the side while draining and demucking the pool had iced over. Killed the Topminnows dead. They had spawned in the cement pond last year and I had a handful of 1.5" juveniles develop. Pretty cool until the ice killed them all including their big, healthy parents. I figured they would have been fine since their native habitat sometimes freezes over. I think that this year in the big bio cement pond they will be fine even if it freezes over do to its depth and size. I returned home as a thunderstorm cleared and started drying my gear and acclimating the fish and planted a few plants I had found. A most excellent 2 days of wandering snorkels.

This morning, Tuesday the Rainbow Shiners had taken up positions in the concrete riffle run I had constructed. I have set several rocks in there covered with water mosses and river weed. Their colors were bright and perhaps they will spawn again. The 3 specimens taken from the area of the spawning frenzy I placed in a tank set up with calm Florida fishes. This was a mistake but was all I had to observe them in. I removed them this morning to the cement pond's riffle run as they were high gear panicky as compared to the peaceful Florida Killies. All three's colors had somewhat standardized and did not exhibit the intensity or variation I had seen 2 days before. I hope to snorkel in the pond soon and maybe see how they appear now. One concern is however the water temp was about 8 degrees higher and summer is not here yet. I may end up building some kind of gazebo, latticework or awning type shelter over one end of the pool.

and that's about it except for last night's silverside foray... :)