NANFA-- Elkhorn creek collecting

Geoff and Julie Kimber (gkimber2_at_earthlink.net)
Sun, 24 Jun 2001 15:19:02 -0500

I went fishing yesterday along with my whole family, which includes my wife,
and 3 boys (ages 6,4 and 3)

A couple of co-workers told me that last weekend they went fishing at hte
elkhorn and found a backwater with a large school of gars. Since my 4 y/o
offed my juvenile gar, I thought I'd try to replace it.

We arrived with seine and dipnets and Julie and I went in with the seine.
We found some juvenile spotfin shiners and johhny (?) darters. While
seining a slow water spot, I was surprised to come up with a log perch. We
seined a bit more and came up with a juvenile rock bass (smaller than a
dime) and a juvenile hogsucker.

We packed everyone up when a mob of 20 somethings came and started commando
fishing. They presented lures to every square inch of both banks a dozen
times in under 10 minutes.

We moved up the creek some and came to a very nice sandbar that had nice
pools up- and downstream for the kids to throw rocks into and swim
(hopefully not at the same time)

Noah (4 y/o) is very ... agressive with his dipnet. I think he's trying to
scare the fish so much that they jump into the bag so he stops chasing them.
It rarely works.

I dipnetted along the banks in the weeds and caught at least a dozen small
rock bass, though they may be warmouth. (does anyone know how to tell
warmouth form rockbass when they are tiny, like dime sized?)

Anyway, along the way I collected and kept 2 hogsuckers, the logperch, and 2
rock bass. The logperch has an anchor worm which I will try to take off
tonight. If it doesn't work, I will add program to the water to whack it.
I've had problems with anchorworms before and I take them seriously.

THe hogsuckers have been grazing on the algae covered rocks I keep in the
stream tank for the stonerollers. Since I have a nice algae-filled creek in
the back yard, I will try to keep nice yummy rocks in the tank for the
stonerollers and hogsuckers and see if that helps the hogsuckers thrive.

Geoff kimber
Lexington,KY

/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
/"Unless stated otherwise, comments made on this list do not necessarily
/ reflect the beliefs or goals of the North American Native Fishes
/ Association"
/ This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes Association
/ nanfa_at_aquaria.net. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get help, send the word
/ subscribe, unsubscribe, or help in the body (not subject) of an email to
/ nanfa-request_at_aquaria.net. For a digest version, send the command to
/ nanfa-digest-request_at_aquaria.net instead.
/ For more information about NANFA, visit our web page, http://www.nanfa.org