NANFA-- little sequatchie... eggs?

Prizma-in-aol.com
Mon, 24 May 2004 17:58:04 EDT

just a quick highlight and question regarding an observation this weekend
while snorkeling the little sequatchie. i came across an area flowing smooth
along a long run and sloped bank in about 2' of water. 2 or 3 dozen mountain
shiners w/ their heads glowing blue floated cloudlike above a deep assemblage of
sticks and debris. in this woody network white tail and striped shiners were
frenzied working nose first into the debris. moving close i could see
everything covered and adherred by translucent, pinkish slightly rusty red
eggs slightly smaller than bbs. a feeding frenzy... and i could detect no
spawning activity. ive seen river chubb, sunfish, striped shiner nests but what
specie would lay their eggs in a deepish wooded debris trough?
i broke off a small twig w/ a dozen eggs and have placed it in one of my
cement ponds isolation chambers which has a decent flow. perhaps they will hatch
out.
after watching awhile i covered the trough w/ a big flat piece of bark and a
stone to hold it in place... otherwise i assume it would have been picked
clean. the question of effecting a natural occurance. ?

there were hundreds probably thousands of eggs. what can they be?

also of note were beautiful breeding whitetail shiners, redline, snub and
rainbow darters in wonderful color. the speckled darters had already lost their
metalic blue. striped shiners, several large males, were pearlescence and
tuberculed tho i saw no nests of stone rollers, river chubbs or striped shiners.
also saw my first fantail type darter in the little sequatchie. very hard to
observe as it tended to slither between crevases hiding-in-every attempt to
pursue it.
i also amazingly caught a small 5" yellow perch for the cement pond. a really
unique body shape. reading my peterson's last night i understand they are not
native to my area but i have seen them in several nearby locations. i also
read they can get like 18" long. wow... ive never seen one that big! hopefully
he will make a good addition to my regular observing.

so what kind eggs could these be?

casper
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