Re: NANFA-L-- Keeping Sculpin and Viewing Buckets

Jeff Grabarkiewicz (threehorn_wartyback at yahoo.com)
Thu, 15 Sep 2005 10:09:04 -0700 (PDT)

Crail- I'm sure on the blackside ID. They are in my tank at home. I was at the last bridge before the Indiana line, the first site we were at awhile back, when you were all jealous of my cylindrica finding lol

I did not have time to go up to the St Joes site. Bummer. I wasn't sure which road, although I am assuming near the Michigan/Ohio border. That is where the strong clava population is located if you read the recovery plan. Where were you at? That is on my list of things to do before the leaves fall.

Oh buckets- I made viewing buckets to find live mussels, but, turns out, you see darters, sculpins and all kinds of stuff with them. All you need is a 5 gallon bucket. Cut out the bottom, which is easier to do than you might think. Start a hole with a drill, and then just cut the bottom with a pair of heavy duty shears or wire cutters....takes about 30 seconds. Go to the hardware, and have them cut a piece of plexiglass to fit the bottom of the bucket. Doesn't even have to be circular. Next, I used Marine Goop epoxy to glue the plexiglass to the bottom of the bucket. Then sprayed the outside of the bucket with an opaque film (all kinds of different products for this). Let it set for 24 hours. And your done.

Jeff

"Todd D. Crail" <tcrail at UTNet.UToledo.Edu> wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Grabarkiewicz"
>
> Todd seined the upper part of this creek, he may have seen more sculpin up
there. I imagine they might also become denser the further you move up.
>

Where'd you go? Road 3? Finally some fish data from there lol. Are you
sure they were blackside? EPA data had a lot of dusky darter up there.
I've been waiting to see some Maumee genotype duskies :)

The population of sculpin was thin upstream in Indiana as well. Far lower
numbers than I would have expected. Creek chub, bluntnose, green sunfish
and johnny darter dominated the fish community, which are all compromise
tolerant... I did catch about 15 mottled sculpin and a single male hornyhead
chub that was sweet. Didn't get any catfish, although John said he saw some
in the riffles under his view bucket (which I think you should tell these
nice NANFA people about fish watching with ;).

The East Fork of the West Branch of the St. Joseph River (what a mouthful
huh?) however... was packed with sculpin and the rest of the higher water
quality crew. Not like Macochee Creek (Mad River) "packed with sculpin",
but pretty darned solid populations. I'm sure it's directly proportionate
to the avg temps of those two streams.

I hope you took time to head north and see this stream if you drove out
there again. Then we can begin to compare notes and start to guess why the
one that looks trashed has the 3 Fed listed animals and the one that looks
sweet, doesn't.

Todd
The Muddy Maumee Madness, Toledo, OH
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
http://www.farmertodd.com
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------
/ This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes
/ Association (NANFA). Comments made on this list do not necessarily
/ reflect the beliefs or goals of NANFA. For more information about NANFA,
/ visit http://www.nanfa.org Please make sure all posts to nanfa-l are
/ consistent with the guidelines as per
/ http://www.nanfa.org/guidelines.shtml To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get
/ help, visit the NANFA email list home page and archive at
/ http://www.nanfa.org/email.shtml
http://mail.yahoo.com
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------
/ This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes
/ Association (NANFA). Comments made on this list do not necessarily
/ reflect the beliefs or goals of NANFA. For more information about NANFA,
/ visit http://www.nanfa.org Please make sure all posts to nanfa-l are
/ consistent with the guidelines as per
/ http://www.nanfa.org/guidelines.shtml To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get
/ help, visit the NANFA email list home page and archive at
/ http://www.nanfa.org/email.shtml