I also visited West Limestone Creek in Limestone County to the west of
Huntsville, near the hamlet of Greenbrier. We've had a lot of rain, and the
creek was running high and fast. A parallel roadside ditch is currently a
slower, shallower channel and has lots of fish in it. I caught a Tuscumbia
darter in this ditch a while back and was hopeful, the closest I found to
that was two black darters, _Etheostoma duryi_ in fairly high color. I also
kept 3 orange-spotted sunfish, _Lepomis humilis_, and 5 _Fundulus
olivaceus_, the blackspotted topminnow. (I know that Martin is thinking they
must be F. notatus; honest to poop, these guys are truly black-spotted on
their dorsal surfaces.) This system should also contain Alabama Pygmy
Sunfish, which I have yet to snag there. I hope to be able to bring someone
else to help me pull a seine net later this spring; today I worked with a
heavy duty dipnet.
My big innovation on this trip was to take measurements of total dissolved
solids (TDS) with a meter I have; Aldridge Creek had a whopping 258 ppm of
TDS, and West Limestone Creek was surprisingly dilute at 58 ppm; temps of 10
C and 9 C, respectively.
I needed a day sloppin' around in the mud and got that; and I took some good
pictures too, I hope.
--Brue Stallsmith
Huntsville, AL
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