NANFA-- Kokosing collecting of 8/25/00

schmidtcarney_at_ecr.net
Sun, 27 Aug 2000 15:00:20 -0500

Hi all--

Went back to the Kokosing River on 8/25/00 with my daughter, a friend,
and her two girls (ages 6 and 4). Conditions were similar to when NANFA
did the collecting trip earlier in August except that water levels were
lower and warmer (mid 70's).

Equipment included 2 small dipnets, so we limited our catches to shallow
riffles along the shore. Most of what we found were smaller, juvenile
fish.

We caught:
rainbow darters (mostly juveniles, 2 adults that look like females)
banded darters (adults)
greenside darters (none larger than 3")
several crayfish--mostly "eating size"
assorted mayfly, caddis fly and other insect larvae

We released most of the darters and all of the inverts. I kept both of
the adult rainbows, most of the juveniles, and a few of each of the
other species. The juveniles seem to be acclimating to tank life more
rapidly than the adults have in the past.

We also checked the small pool of water located under the bridge along
the river (trapped as the river levels receded. It is still full of
small fish, but we also scared a large (8" or so) fish out from under
the tree limbs. Looked like a sunfish of some sort, but it was too quick
at getting back under cover and we could not catch it for positive ID.

We also spotted larger darters and large schools of small fish in deeper
water, but could not catch them because of equipment limitations (not
too mention 3 excited kids splashing around).

BTW, a female variegate darter was found on the last outing (8/12) at
this site. If someone can describe what juveniles of this species look
like I will sample along the edges in hopes of finding whether she was
aberrant or if there is actually a breeding population of this species
in the river.

Catherine

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