There's been a Regional Meeting in discussion for late April on the
Tippecanoe River in Indiana. It's been proposed that we stay at the
Tippecanoe State Campgrounds where we will have the option of group camping,
pet camping, or individual camping with modern facilities... It seems to be
a fairly good sized park (None in dicsussion have been there, any experience
would be gladly heard! :) and will place us in the center of Hoosier fish
diversity, with multitudes of varying habitat (large rapids to wet heavily
vegetated prairies). Additionally, there are trails and all sorts of
outdoor activity in the area for those family members who may want to join,
but not be in the water, geeking out over fishes :)
As perhaps its finest feature, it's located in a geographic locale that will
be a decent drive for many NANFAns.
http://www.in.gov/dnr/parklake/parks/tippecanoeriver.html
Our current weekend in planning is April 30, 31 and May 1. There may be
people showing up before and staying after. This date is not in stone yet,
but we'd prefer to keep it in the April vincinity, first of all, to assure
seeing darters in their full nuptial yummie-ness, and mainly to avoid any
conflict with coming too close to the Convention in mid June.
There are in this area, a host of imperiled species that we will have an
excellent chance to look at. Spotted, bluebreast, tippecanoe and gilt
darters, perhaps running the foremost of the list (the later 3 sampled at
most if not all locales hosting their habitat by Page et al in '85-'87,
spotted sampled at 3 locales around the SP). While they may be common in
our sampling (which is really cool), Indiana has made it very clear that
these species are "no take" and are listed as State Endangered.
I'd like to set a new precedent that we only take _photographed_ vouchers of
these _species_, wether you have a permit or not :) I think that it will
help to maintain consistency across the group and keep this event as a
wholesome educational experience without any dissent. This may be a policy
to look into for the organization... But we'll talk about that elsewhere.
'Nough about that. :)
Week long out of state liscences were $13 in 2003. I haven't seen the 2004
numbers yet. Take rules are similar to Ohio and Michigan... Darters are
legal for take unless state listed, unlike that crazy rule in Illinois :)
So if you'd like to join us, please let a regional representative know
(replying to me offlist is fine too, even if you're not in Ohio) so we can
count you in for this trip and plan our accomodations accordingly. A list
of the folks for this region is found at:
http://www.nanfa.org/NANFAregions/mwus.htm
You needn't be a member of NANFA to attend. If you are interested, even
remotely, please communicate with one of us so we can get this date set.
I'd like to send a paper mailing to my folks in Ohio mid January, so I'd
like to have the "plans in place" by then.
Hope to see you out there! :)
Todd
4" of snow in Toledo, OH
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
http://www.farmertodd.com
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