We got in a short collectin' trip today to the usual places, and a couple
of spots not hit since last year at this time.
The water is finally drawn down in Lake Petenwell, and its down further
than it has been in a several years. The carp were schooled thick and
finning the surface at Devils Elbow. Here we didn't catch a whole lot,
since it is usually better at night, not when the sun is shining for sure.
Bluegill, and brook stickleback were the only fish caught, and a big pile of
rusty crawfish. Many of these were large enough to eat. My Dad , Brother
and his Girl friend were line fishing there , but had no luck.
Next we stopped at Chester Creek and had the new photo tank ready. We
caught several species of darter. Rainbow, Johnny, fantail and logperch.
We also caught some rusties here too. Then the inevitable happened, the
camera stopped working. With daylight growing short and a bank of clouds
moving in we headed down the road.
We stopped at Brown Deer creek to get some gammurus and amphipods. These
are very thick in the crowfoot and elodea growing in huge beds in this sandy
creek. To catch them, no net is required. Fill a pail with some water, and
grab some weeds and swish them in the pail. That's it. This stream use to
have a lot of spotfin , river and emerald shiners in the bend we stop at.
For some reason the scour hole in the bend filled in with sand, and the fish
are no longer there. I think we need some good floods to scour these out
again. The same thing is occurring in channels, creeks and ditches in the
marsh. These though are filling with silt and choked with weeds, which is
normally controlled by several floods a year, and usually one whopper in the
spring.
We then went to the Yellow River and it was getting pretty dark. Hopes of
catching a burbot were low. We did catch a lot of nice banded and fan tail
darters. Suddenly a lot of snow began to fall, so we went to the gas
station, got some hotdogs and sat out in the cold to look funny to the
fishing group that just got done on the lake, eating out on the propane tank
display like it was a summer time picnic.
We wanted to go to Plank Hill, another place which is the mouth of Lynn
Creek, but the weather was just too much, so we stopped at Hogan's Hole in
the marsh for ,yes, feeder minnows for my bowfins. There were also some
small yellow perch in the school of blacknose and golden shiner, which were
released. That was it, we had enough and called it quits.
Ray
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