NANFA-L-- Ohio Eye Candy...


Subject: NANFA-L-- Ohio Eye Candy...
From: Todd Crail (farmertodd-in-buckeye-express.com)
Date: Sat Aug 21 2004 - 14:52:33 CDT


Greetings Listizens,

Thursday was supposed to be my day to format the recent Sipsey trip and
complete my setup over-in-the elementary school of the 150 gallon native
tank... But my buddy said on Wednesday "If I took off Thursday, would you
want to go someplace cool?"

Big Darby Creek it was. (sorry Casper, you now own tomorrow :)

Here's some eye candy from the trip:
http://www.farmertodd.com/nanfa/081904Darby/

Let's see... I gotta do this quick...

The Big Darby, in case you're not familiar with it, is Ohio "Crown Jewel" of
streams. It's still getting beat on by sedimentation and velocity, but land
grants and the work of the DNR, SWC, The Nature Conservancy, etc has
stabalized a fair portion. It could still really use a hand though... The
outside bank downstream from Fox Riffle has now cut under the next row of
trees, and they're 15' up the bank (the front line of trees that were
holding it are all just downstream making some really interesting habitat,
but I could do without it!). This is just from last fall when I surveyed it
for my first time. Not good.

Anyway... There's a schlode of state listed fish in this series of riffles.
We sampled 150+ each of bluebreast and Tippecanoe darters, hundreds of
variegate darters, banded, rainbow and greenside darters by the pound. We
also sampled probably 100 streamline chubs, some of which were exceptionally
sized specimens.

We had a little trouble finding the State Endangered spotted darters, but we
did end up with a beautiful male for photographs so others might appreciate
his power and beauty... Jeff was getting the bucket caught back up to us so
he might grab a couple of the nice bandeds we were sampling right there. I
thought, "Wouldn't it be funny if I just threw the seine out right here,
kicked to it by myself and got a spotted?" So I did. Heeheehee. "JEFF!
GET OVER HERE!" :) We also saw a nice sized female spotted and a dozen YOY,
which was VERY incouraging. I just can't get over how powerful these fish
are for such a small critter. They just scream it.

We also saw 3 species of madtom (brindled, northern and stonecat) with a
nice specimen of northern you saw in the photos. While trying to ID him in
hand (stupid idea) by getting a look-in-his adipose fin markings, I was
elegantly tommed. Ouch. Wasn't as bad as a tadpole madtom that got me, but
it did hurt like heck for 20 minutes. Yeah, I think next time they'll just
go into a viewing tank and ID'd there.

Saw a lot of mussels out on the Scioto proper and upstream on the Darby at
Battelle Darby Park. Fox Riffle, for whatever reason, doesn't have that
many valves laying around. Only really heavy relicts, so I'm guessing it's
too accelerated there for them to survive the pounding on those rocks.
Anyway... I was completely impressed with what mussel diversity that part of
the state holds. Finally saw a real pistolgrip. Holey moley. I did _not_
realize how big they got.

Also saw Tippecanoe and varigate darters-in-Battelle, but we were so whipped
by the time we got there, we didn't really give it much of a sample. We
were working a more southern riffle series in the park,-in-the dead end of
that road that goes up in to the east of the stream from the south. Saw
Cedar Grove Picnic Area on the way out. I just found out last night my
sister's new house is all of 10 minutes away from the park. I guess I'll be
visiting more <ahem> frequently. ;)

My buddy. I have a new partner in crime. A guy that works for Lucas County
Soil, Water and Conservation sent me an email back in early June asking how
the heck someone else in Lucas county was into native fish. He wanted to
set up an aquarium to show people what lives in the streams and was doing
research (was familiar with "darter" and "shiner" and "sunfish" but that was
the extent). Man he's quite precocious-in-this nature stuff... He has
learned sooooo fast, I'd say-in-this point, he's ready to lead his own
"aquatic nature walks" :)

It's been great to have another fish geek in town. We've done a lot of
sampling over the last couple months, and a large portion of it has been
putting biological data and PICTURES of what lives "IN THAT?" so people
might think extra about what he's proposing they do with their surface water
as they develop neighborhoods and farm.

Very cool. You'll hear more about him as time goes on. He's had AC's
handed to him, but I'm cutting him off this issue :)

(Which btw Chris, is fantastic! That lamprey article is the real deal!)

Okay... So here's the lists, and just in common names, and smashed for your
reading convenience. Not much philosophy and mental wandering in this
email, but I still managed to make that little scroll bar tiny hahahaha.

I have to go to a company picnic now <wheeeeeeeeeeeee>

Scioto River - Mackey Ford Wildlife Area SR 752
Todd Crail, Jeff Grabarkiewicz - 8' Seine, Perfect Dipnet
12:00-1:00 pm , 80 degrees F, water temp ~74, ~30 JTU

bluntnose minnow, stoneroller, suckermouth minnow,
sand/mimic shiner (I'm leaning towards both being present)
silver shiner, steelcolor shiner, striped shiner,
streamline chub,
river chub,
redhorse sp. (juv),
blackstripe topminnow,
green sunfish, spotted bass, largemouth bass,
banded darter, greenside darter, rainbow darter, johnny darter

Mussels:
pistolgrip, pink papershell, spike, kidneyshell,
fragile papershell, mapleleaf, three ridge,
long solid or round hickorynut or round pigtoe?
three horn wartyback, white heelsplitter,
deertoe, wavy-rayed lampmussel ?

Big Darby Creek, Fox Riffle
Todd Crail, Jeff Grabarkiewicz - 8' Seine, Perfect Dipnet
1:00 pm - 6:00 pm, 84 degrees F, water temp ~72, ~15 JTU

bluntnose minnow, suckermouth minnnow,
blacknose dace (man was he lost! :),
spotfin shiner, steelcolor shiner (both counts of anal rays),
silver shiner, rosyface shiner, striped shiner,
sand/mimic shiner (both again I think),
unknown hybopsis chub (maybe bigeye?),
streamline chub,
redhorse sp. (juv - maybe golden redhorse), northern hogsucker,
brindled madtom, northern madtom, stonecat,
largemouth bass, smallmouth bass,
banded darter, greenside darter, rainbow darter,
bluebreast darter, Tippecanoe darter, varigate darter,
logperch darter, spotted darter, johnny darter,

Big Darby Creek, Battelle Darby Metropark
Todd Crail, Jeff Grabarkiewicz - 8' Seine, Perfect Dipnet
7:00 pm - 8:00 pm, 84 degrees F, water temp ~74, ~30 JTU

stoneroller, spotfin shiner, rock bass,
banded darter, greenside darter, Tippecanoe darter,
varigate darter, rainbow darter, johnny darter,

Mussels:
pistolgrip, spike, kidneyshell, three ridge,
elktoe, purple wartyback

It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
http://www.farmertodd.com

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: Wed Sep 29 2004 - 12:24:20 CDT