Began by snorkeling downstream of the bridge in a small gravel run/shoal and flipped rocks as i moved along upstream. It didn't take me more than 5 minutes to start seeing Bloodfins. I had my fun catching them in dipnets and putting them in a plastic bottle to look at, which a stray dog kept knocking over, and then needing to catch more. Most in this slower current were YOY to 1 year old fish. So I headed up to a nice swift shute with a scour hole under the bridge with some large rubble. Immediately I started seeing the larger Bloodfins under rocks some of which you could see the red in their fins just from the surface of the water. Along the current margins the darter community started to spread out going from Bloodfins, to Greensides, Faintails, to Cherry darters as the current dissapated. There was also a large school of Telescope shiners, Stonerollers, Big eye shiner, and a few Smallmouth bass, Redhorse, and Hog sucker.
Finally had to give up the fun and help out with the seining and shocking which proved a little less successful than I hoped it would be ... (a little less enthusiastic people helping out).
After about 30-45 minutes of kicking and shocking around we tallied up....
Stoneroller
Striped Shiner
Rosyface Shiner
Telescope Shiner
Big Eye Shiner
Rosyside Dace
Smallmouth Bass
Rock Bass
Bloodfin Darter
Cherry Darter
Fantail Darter
Greenside Darter
and I believe a few Barcheek Darters or some form of the Catanotus subgenus
Matt Ashton
Tennessee Tech University
Cookeville, TN
Caney Fork Drainage
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