Re: NANFA-L-- Holston River Obsevations

Jeff Grabarkiewicz (threehorn_wartyback-in-yahoo.com)
Wed, 20 Apr 2005 05:58:55 -0700 (PDT)

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Ya, the breeding greensides are amazing right now. I had 20 college students down-in-a small creek here in good ol Northwest Ohio and the males were clustered in congregates of 20 easily, with the gravid females hanging out-in-the head of the riffle. The males were green like fluorescent christmas trees :)

Later, the not-so-surprising question came from one student "Can you keep those green fish in aquariums???" Well......

matt ashton <ashtonmj2003-in-yahoo.com> wrote:

Today marked my first day collecting in Tennessee waters, and after a AFS chapter meeting and a rare fish meeting in the last month and being in warmer weather now I have had a major itch to be in the water. It was all for fun really too, no research, no hard data needed, just getting me familiar with large rivers and some of the fish I will run into, and grabbing some to do glochidia infestations. So I headed out to the Holston River-in-McKinney Island to a large shoal for some greenside darters.

Well being the first day of the year using equipment, Murphy was certainly with me, because everything that could go wrong did. The shocker took a good 15 minutes to get a frequency and voltage that stunned fish. The bucket that we were using to temporary hold fish before transporting them to the cooler broke. The shocker decided to stop working, no problem right, I brought a back up. Well the backup was even worse off, having a short somewhere in the shocking unit, resetting itself every 5 seconds basically, never producing a pulse. Driving through Knoxville wasn't pretty either and the detour made it worse.

I hoped to get 50 greenside darters, needless to say I ended up with half in about 4 times the amout of time I was told it would take. They were VERY habitat specific, being found only in about 10"-18" of water with alot of algae growth over small cobble in moderate current. As soon as I strayed out of this depth range it switched over to banded darters and snubnose darter. Any faster current and it was also banded darters and well something that stumped me because any of my choices I hadn't seen live before, I didn't know the accounts and exact ranges, and I was keeping things that weren't greensides for about a whole 2 seconds. At first I thought they were tippecanoes but after looking-in-some photos online tonight (my Tenn. book is in the office) I'm lead to think they are spotted darters. There nose was so pointed and it wasn't really the breast that was blue as much as it was the area right behind the operculum so I ruled out bluebreasts. Red spots along the sides and some
dark margins on all fins. Some even had a vibrant red lower lip, so that really confused me. Who knows maybe I had two species, it was a quick look and tossing back in the water.

The greensides were in amazing color, Grand River (OH) like one would say, and since it was just brought up about the rainbows, I did catch one female that was so gravid with eggs she could not really sit on her belly without leaning to one side, almost falling over. Ive never seen a fish so gravid before, almost twice as wide in the stomach as the dorsal area. Bandeds were also in great colors. I do not think I have seen anything as beautiful as a snubnose. Bright orange sides of varying shades, deep green snouts, bold red dorsal spot, truely an amazing fish.

Sculpin, suckers, shiners, hog sucker, large redhorses were also seen or caught.

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<DIV>Ya, the breeding greensides are amazing right now.&nbsp; I had 20 college students down-in-a small creek here in good ol Northwest Ohio&nbsp;and the males were clustered in congregates of 20 easily, with the gravid females&nbsp;hanging out-in-the&nbsp;head of the&nbsp;riffle.&nbsp; The males were green like fluorescent christmas trees :)</DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV>Later,&nbsp;the not-so-surprising question came from one student "Can you keep those green fish in aquariums???"&nbsp;&nbsp;Well......&nbsp;<BR><BR><B><I>matt ashton &lt;ashtonmj2003-in-yahoo.com&gt;</I></B> wrote:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">
<DIV><BR><BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">
<P><STRONG><EM>Today&nbsp;marked&nbsp;my first day collecting in Tennessee waters, and after a AFS chapter meeting and a rare fish meeting in the last month and being in warmer weather now I have had a major itch to be in the water.&nbsp; It was all for fun really too, no research, no hard data needed, just getting me familiar with large rivers and some of the fish I will run into, and grabbing some to do glochidia infestations.&nbsp; So I headed out to the Holston River-in-McKinney Island to a large shoal for some greenside darters.</EM></STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG><EM>Well being the first day of the year using equipment, Murphy was certainly with me, because everything that could go wrong did.&nbsp; The shocker took a good 15 minutes to get a frequency and voltage that stunned fish.&nbsp; The bucket that we were using to temporary hold fish before transporting them to the cooler broke.&nbsp; The shocker decided to stop working, no problem right, I brought a back up. Well the backup was even worse off, having a short somewhere in the shocking unit, resetting itself every 5 seconds basically, never producing a pulse.&nbsp; Driving through Knoxville wasn't pretty either and the detour made it worse.</EM></STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG><EM>I hoped to get 50 greenside darters, needless to say I ended up with half in about 4 times the amout of time I was told it would take.&nbsp; They were VERY habitat specific, being found only in about 10"-18" of water with alot of algae growth over small cobble in moderate current.&nbsp; As soon as I strayed out of this depth range it switched over to banded darters and snubnose darter.&nbsp; Any faster current and it was also banded darters and well something that stumped me because any of my choices I hadn't seen live before, I didn't know the accounts and exact ranges, and I was keeping things that weren't greensides for about a whole 2 seconds.&nbsp; At first I thought they were tippecanoes but after looking-in-some photos online tonight (my Tenn. book is in the office) I'm lead to think they are spotted darters.&nbsp; There nose was so pointed and it wasn't really the breast that was blue as much as it was the area right behind the operculum so I ruled out
bluebreasts.&nbsp; Red spots along the sides and some dark margins on all fins.&nbsp; Some even had a vibrant red lower lip, so that really confused me. Who knows maybe I had two species, it was a quick look and tossing back in the water.</EM></STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG><EM>The greensides were in amazing color, Grand River (OH) like one would say, and since it was just brought up about the rainbows, I did catch one female that was so gravid with eggs she could not really sit on her belly without leaning to one side, almost falling over. Ive never seen a fish so gravid before, almost twice as wide in the stomach as the dorsal area.&nbsp; Bandeds were also in great colors. I do not think I have seen anything as beautiful&nbsp;as a snubnose.&nbsp; Bright orange sides of varying shades, deep green snouts, bold red dorsal spot, truely an amazing fish.&nbsp; </EM></STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG><EM>Sculpin, suckers, shiners, hog sucker, large redhorses were also seen or caught.</EM></STRONG></P></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
<P>
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