NANFA-- backyard creek

Geoff and Julie Kimber (gkimber2_at_earthlink.net)
Wed, 11 Apr 2001 19:06:52 -0500

In November My family and I moved into our new house in Niocholasville KY (15 miles south of Lexington). The house has a small creek along the back of hte property. THe creek is pretty nasty as it runs through downtown next to the town dump and through several farms. When it enters my property, it foams a bit too. There is only a thick coat of hair algae on the rocks - no good algae at all.

I didn't really have high hopes for fish. In fact, a quick survey revealed just a bunch of gambusia, either affinis or hobrookii. On top of that, I don't have my tanks set up yet - the house is a bit smaller than my old one and I'm having a hard time finding the gravel I want.

Well, it's really warm here in KY and my 4 year old is remembering the time he accidently caught a mudminnow in Wisconsin and thinks he's a great fisherman. He finally talked me into getting the net out and scooping out a few fish to look at.

The gambusia really are affinis or holbrookii and really not interesting unless you're 4

There were a few surpises though -

I caught a pair of non-descript darters. I didn't ID them because they were non-descript (?maybe fantail?) and the female was gravid. Since the fish are not common in my creek, I decided to let them go.

I also found a bunch of really big isopods. They look pretty much like aquatic pill bugs. I measured a big one and they are 3/4" long. I've never seen them before and they're pretty neat.

I also caught the largest gammarus I'd ever seen. Extended, they are 1/2" long. Most gammarus I have ever seen before are about 1/2 that size at best.

Other cathes included crayfish, a bullfrog tadpole and a 3-legged 1" salamander with gills (I called them mudpuppies as a child).

Anyway, my 4 year old couldn't keep his hands out of the temporary tank I set up so everything when back from whence it came. No flames, please. THe tank was clean and there was nothing in it before I set the temp tank up.

I know that this is not as exciting a collecting trip as others have reported, but I was kind of happy top find interesting stuff in the creek I own a very small part of.

Geoff Kimber
Nicholasville, KY

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