NANFA-- best weekend ever

geoff (gkimber2_at_alltel.net)
Tue, 1 Apr 2003 18:57:52 -0500

I had the best fishing weekend ever.

I drove like a maniac from Lexington to the swamp on friday. I got there
too late for taillights, but that was OK.

Saturday I went in the boat with Steven, Phillip and Mike Wolf. I cannot
imagine how steven got permission to collect in an NWR. After that, we
collected in a couple more places until we finished the day at the Suwanee
river. Amazing mosquito population they have there. I wouldn't quit
fishing until the sun was down and the mosqitos were so thick that you
couldn't stand still long enough to get the fish out of the net. Managed to
inhale one of the buggers and about coughed my lungs out.

I didn't collect enough L ommata to be satisfied, so I left at 5:30 Sunday
for home, with a planned stop in Waycross. I went to the pond we collected
in last year and in the pouring rain, and I found huge amounts of L ommata
in about 15 minutes.

I finally got home at around 7pm, just in time for Mark Binkley to arrive at
8pm. Mark took posession of the fish I was hauling for him and he rebagged
until the wee hours of the morning.

On Monday, Mark and I went on a whirlwind tour of 3 different river
drainages - the Rockcastle, the Cumberland, and the Green. Mark has the
species list, so a better collecting report is on the way, but I spent
basically all day in my waders catching fish I had no idea were that close
to my house. We found two sites that offer prime snorkeling habitat, and I
found the holy grail - SRBDs!

These critters were no more than 50 miles from my house, and I have been
looking for them since I moved to KY 2.5 years ago. The females are huge
with eggs, so it looks like I'll they'll spawn too. Now, if I am not too
inept, I might be able to raise up a batch of SRBDs.

Anyway - We found a good base for a summer collecting trip to south Central
KY. I'll spend the next few weeks refining the collecting sites and put
together a collecting foray into the wilds of KY.

So despite driving 1600 miles in 3 days, it was great. I collected deep in
the swamp and the hills of KY in just 72 hours. Of course, it will take a
while to recover, but it was worth it.

Geoff Kimber
Lexington,KY
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