We've had activity here in Ohio the last two weekends, which has just been
awesome. I'll post a nice little webpage about the 10/12/02 trip as soon as I
get a fish list (hint hint hint ;). Lots of great pictures came from that
trip, as my "Movie Posters" last week may have suggested. We got some more
shots this week, you'll find the link at the end of this email :)
This weekend it was off to the Mighty Muddy Maumee. NANFA members present
were Nick Zarlinga, Eric Massengil, and myself. Kathy Duffy (the herper
chick) from the Cleveland Zoo joined us as well. Eric's son Rhys was with us
for a bit, but it was danged cold out with the wind, and well, a 5 year old
with wet feet in the wind is a bad scene. Eric returned from taking him home
to inform us that Rhys said "I hate this place!". We'll have to get him back
there in fairer weather :)
Our first site was Buttonwood Access which is a very popular place when the
Walleye are running in the spring. The wind was absolutely brutal. It was
one of those days where you almost hope there's a couple rocks in the seine so
everything doesn't fly out when you lift it. Pictures of this location are in
the photo series. You can see how exposed we were. BRRRRRRRRRR.
At any rate, we managed to run into some fish. I had always suspected there
were stonecat in that rapid, I was glad to have finally run into one. Nick
seemed impressed by the frequency of Logperch. I'd say we'd prolly caught
30-40, some of which were 5-6" range and looked like little walleye heh. In
the spring, it's not uncommon to snag one while working your jig for the
walleye. If I'm around, we have nature learning time :) Other than that, the
suckermouth minnows were of impressive size as were the brook silversides
(which we quickly released the silversides so they wouldn't die for a picture.
that owuuld be kinda counterintuitive).
So the list for Maumee River, Buttonwood Access looked like this:
bluegill
bluntnose minnow
brook silverside
emerald shiner
greenside darter
hog sucker
johnny darter
logperch!!
rockbass
smallmouth bass
spotfin shiner
stonecat
suckermouth minnow
Okay, so the clock was tickin' and we wanted out of the cold. We moved on to
Beaver Creek which is a small tributary of the Maumee. Unfortunately, my
usual bridge access had "No Parking" signs everywhere, so that kinda shot
that. Sadly, that prevented us from hitting a couple pools that would have
been awesome. So we began driving around and hit it from another bridge. The
site was cluttered with mussel shells, which was so nice to see! I took some
shots, hopefully I'll be able to find someone to id them. I'm really lacking
on mussel knowledge.
I will never buy bait again. This site yielded a minimum of 75 spotfin shiner
and bluntnose minnows per seine dip. It got ridiculous after a while heh. We
still did okay tho. We ran into a couple of Orangespot sunfish and a really
nice specimen of Blackside Darter. This portion was rough on us tho, as Nick
ripped all the way to his last "mil" on his waders, and I fully penetrated
mine. Guess we should pay more attention to the hawthornes if we're going to
stomp in them :)
So, the list for Beaver Creek, Long Judson Road bridge was:
blackside darter
bluegill
bluntnose minnow
creek chub
gizzard shad
greenside darter
johnny darter
orangespot sunfish
rock bass
spotfin shiner!!!
smallmouth bass
We then hurried off to Van Tassel Access back on the Maumee. We didn't really
have time to walk to the big undercuts to see if we could score some eatin'
size Orangspots and really show the color of these fantastic critters.
However, we quickly worked the riffles and some of the marginal water willow.
Quick trip, quick results, added a largemouth bass to the day's tally.
Maumee River, Van Tassel Access:
bluntnose minnow
bluegill
greenside darter
johnny darter
largemouth bass
orangespot sunfish
rock bass
smallmouth bass
spotfin shiner
stonecat
As Nick needed to get back to Cleveland to celebrate Sweetest Day, we parted
ways. I made a quick stop at the Providence Dam in Grand Rapids on my way out
to a friends for a little dipnet kickin'. It's very flat limestone at this
location, and with the water so clear, I was able to see where rocks were
lying on the bedrock. Makes for easy targets :) From out a crack in the dam,
I managed to pluck a Tadpole Madtom, which is the first I'd seen in the Maumee
as well.
He also managed to pluck me. That is just the worst feeling. You know you
got hit, you're waiting waiting waiting and then... THE FIRE IS ON! Oh man I
don't think I'll do that again. I tell you, the people watching me and the
dam got some real treats. Getting "Tommed", sliping on a rock and landing
flat on my duff. I guess they didn't know that fishing was a full contact
sport. <sigh> But I pressed onward, in spite of some duck hunters that I
could not believe they could shoot *in town* like that (!), and my pain to
turn up this list:
Maumee River, Providence Dam
Bluegill
Bluntnose Minnow
Emerald Shiner
Green Sunfish
Greenside Darter
Logperch
Orangespot Sunfish
Rock Bass
Spotfin Shiner
Stone Cat
Tadpole Madtom
The perty pictures I took can be found here:
http://www.farmertodd.com/nanfa/101902/
So I hope you've all enjoyed this :)
I do have one request... Please do not ask me to send you Orangespots, as the
last time I mentioned them I had about 5 different people ask. I know they're
difficult to come by, but I am not in a position to ship the animals with
their best interests in mind. I will however, work with ol' Jonah to get some
animals available as it seems we've located some real honey holes that allow
for capture outside of the floods in the spring. It has also helped that I
learned this is an introduced population from the Wabash River via the
Erie-Miami Canal, so any ethics issues for net capture went out my backdoor
(I'm just doing my part to remove the exotics, officer. ;) So please be
patient... We'll get it there :)
Todd
http://www.farmertodd.com
My President is Bruce Stallsmith
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