NANFA-- Midwest collecting report - long!

Dave Neely (rheopresbe_at_hotmail.com)
Tue, 21 Oct 2003 13:21:25 -0500

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Hey all,

y'all missed a great trip, lots of fun habitat and cool fishes. I thought I
had an assistant arranged for the weekend, but he bailed out at the last
minute. No bag seining... I headed north Saturday morning, driving across
creek after creek that was high and chocolate-milk colored. We'd had some
heavy rain on the 14th, but the flows on the USGS website didn't look that
high...

First site of the weekend was Big Creek at Scott Rd, NNW of Flint Hill,
Lincoln Co., MO. 18 October 2003. Water was high and turbid; width to 50m,
depth to >2m; vegetation sparse, mostly submerged terrestrials; bottom mud,
sand, gravel, cobble; current slow-fast. Difficult access, riffles few,
highly embedded, and separated by deep pools. The banks were steep and
slick, I did an ungraceful butt-slide into the creek. There was a deep, fast
sluice right under the bridge that looked good, but was seemingly devoid of
fish. I got out and thrashed through the streamside brush upstream to the
next riffle, and repeated the otterslide entry. Ahhh, better. Probably would
have gotten a few more cyprinids if I'd been seining...

Campostoma pullum
Cyprinella lutrensis
Notropis atherinoides
Phenacobius mirabilis
Pimephales notatus
Pimephales vigilax
Moxostoma macrolepidotum
Fundulus catenatus
Lepomis cyanellus
Lepomis macrochirus
Micropterus salmoides
Etheostoma flabellare
Etheostoma nigrum
Etheostoma spectabile
Percina caprodes
Percina phoxocephala

Exit was via a soybean field, with deep sticky mud that made me work for
each step forward.I got to the truck and gashed my hand open trying to find
a pair of scissors to take fin clips.
To make matters worse, the one fish I really wanted slipped out of my hand
and fell into the formalin, BEFORE I could take a tissue sample for DNA
analysis. I fished it out, washed it off, and took a tissue sample, but
don't know whether it will work or not.

Grumbling, I drove north to the second site... with easy access via an
abandoned bridge.
Cuivre River at MO Hwy C in Moscow Mills, Lincoln Co., MO. 18 October 2003.
Water turbid; width to 40m, depth to >2m; no vegetation; bottom sand, silt,
gravel, cobble; current slow-fast. Interesting site... beautiful riffle
downstream of bridge drops into deep sandy runs.

Lepisosteus platostomus
Dorosoma cepedianum
Campostoma pullum
Cyprinella lutrensis
Notropis atherinoides
Notropis ludibundus
Phenacobius mirabilis
Pimephales notatus
Pimephales vigilax
Carpioides carpio
Moxostoma duquesnei
Moxostoma erythrurum
Moxostoma macrolepidotum
Ictalurus punctatus
Lepomis cyanellus
Lepomis humilis
Lepomis macrochirus
Micropterus dolomieu
Micropterus salmoides
Etheostoma flabellare
Etheostoma nigrum
Etheostoma spectabile
Percina caprodes
Percina phoxocephala (Slenderhead darter capitol of Missouri?)
Aplodinotus grunniens

Much better. Several locals stopped and got the dog and pony show, luckily
I'd kept a pretty o-spot that got rave reviews "ya mean they don't git big
enuf to catch? sure are purty..." Drove north trying to sqeeze in one more
before dark... and it was to be a surprisingly good one. I'd done several
sites on the North River near Palmyra, MO before, and they were deep and
'wampy. A spur of the moment decision put me on...

South River at MO Hwy 168, wsw Huiscamp, Marion Co., MO. 18 October 2003.
Water sl. turbid; width to 30m, depth to 1.6m; vegetation algae and some
senescent Potamogeton; bottom sand, gravel, sparse boulder; current
slow-fast. Really fun site... area just upstream of bridge with large
bouldery substrate that had lots of fish.

Campostoma pullum
Cyprinella lutrensis
Notropis boops
Notropis ludibundus
Pimephales notatus
Lepomis cyanellus
Lepomis macrochirus
Micropterus salmoides
Etheostoma asprigene
Etheostoma flabellare
Etheostoma nigrum
Etheostoma spectabile
Percina caprodes
Percina maculata
Percina phoxocephala

As I was working the fish up, a cop car comes flying over the hill, lights
ablaze and siren wailing, screeches to a stop next to me, and asks if I've
seen a combine on fire... This should have been a sign not to stay in the
general vicinity that evening... but instead I wound up in a sketch motel in
Keokuk, IA. At least I was close to the site I wanted to hit the next
morning...

Mississippi River at boat ramp in Montrose, Lee Co., IA. 19 October 2003.
Water turbid; width to 1.5km, depth to >>2m; vegetation algae, duckweed,
Potamogeton, and others abundant in backwater and in mainstem upstream of
sampled reach; bottom sand, gravel, rip-rap; current slow.

Cyprinus carpio - I checked 20 or 30 big honking carp for lampreys, but
wan't so lucky.
Cyprinella spiloptera
Notropis atherinoides
Notropis blennius
Notropis wickliffi
Ictalurus punctatus
Lepomis cyanellus
Lepomis humilus
Lepomis macrochirus
Micropterus salmoides
Etheostoma asprigene - several in deep rip-rap.

Time to rethink the idea of effectively sampling the mainstem with just me.
I headed inland towards more manageable waters... or so I thought.

Des Moines River about 300m downstream of IA Hwy 1 in Keosaqua, Van Buren
Co., IA. 19 October 2003. Water sl. turbid; width to 150m, depth to >2m;
vegetation green filamentous algae and slimy grey funky stuff; bottom
cobble, silt, gravel; current slow-moderate. Looked awesome from the
bridge, could barely get suited up fast enough. A beautiful river-wide
riffle stretched before me... I started shocking... and shocking... and
shocking... where's the fish? Low species diversity and abundance - I
should have stopped earlier but I couldn't until I'd worked that riffle...

Dorosoma cepedianum
Campostoma pullum
Cyprinus carpio
Cyprinella lutrensis
Notropis atherinoides
Pimephales notatus
Semotilus atromaculatus (what were these doing in a river this big?)
Carpioides carpio
Carpioides cyprinus
Carpioides velifer?
Ictalurus punctatus
Noturus flavus
Pylodictis olivaris
Lepomis cyanellus
Lepomis humilis
Lepomis macrochirus
Micropterus salmoides
Etheostoma flabellare
Percina phoxocephala

I headed southward along the river looking for a manageable-sized trip that
might have cleaner water...

Big Indian Creek from IA Hwy 81 downstream to mouth, and Des Moines River
upstream to IA Hwy 2 in Farmington. 19 October 2003. (Condition in creek/in
river) Water clear/turbid; width to 20m/150m, depth to 0.75m/>2m; no
vegetation; bottom silt, gravel/sand. The low, clear pool where I started
seemed empty; I worked downstream towards a fallen treetop and started
picking up YOY bluegills. Suddenly a huge fish blasted upstrea past me,
leaving a large wake. I turned and ran through the knee-deep water after it,
finally cornering it in a backwater... A huge bighead carp, 7 or 8 lbs! Must
have come up from the mainstem during high water. After working downstream
to the mouth and into the mainstem Des Moines, I found the highly dessicated
carcasses of a dozen shovelnose sturgeon on a sandbar.

Scaphirhynchus platorhynchus
Campostoma pullum
Cyprinella lutrensis
Hypopthalmichthys nobilis
Notropis atherinoides
Pimephales notatus
Carpioides carpio
Carpioides cyprinus
Ictalurus punctatus
Lepomis cyanellus
Lepomis macrochirus
Micropterus dolomieu
Micropterus salmoides
Etheostoma flabellare
Etheostoma spectabile

OK, enough of Iowa, I needed a nice stream... drove southwest and found it.
This is a gem worthy of a return trip. Elk Fork Salt River at Union Covered
Bridge on CR 962, SW of Paris, Monroe Co., MO. 19 October 2003. Water clear;
width to 30m, depth to 1.6m; vegetation Justicia; bottom gravel, cobble,
sparse sand, bedrock. Awesome site. Easy access ( a state historical site),
nice habitat, excellent diversity for the size of the stream.

Campostoma pullum
Cyprinella lutrensis
Lythrurus umbratilis
Notemigonus crysoleucas
Notropis ludibundus
Phenacobius mirabilis
Pimephales notatus
Moxostoma erythrurum
Moxostoma macrolepidotum
Ameiurus natalis
Ictalurus punctatus
Noturus exilis
Pylodictis olivaris
Lepomis cyanellus
Lepomis humilis
Lepomis macrochirus
Micropterus dolomieu
Micropterus salmoides
Etheostoma flabellare
Etheostoma nigrum
Etheostoma spectabile
Percina caprodes
Percina maculata
Percina phoxocephala
Sander vitreum
Aplodinotus grunniens

Overall, not bad for a whirlwind trip. The MO portion was great, the IA part
slightly less so. Next time I'll give folks more time to plan on attending,
so we can break out the bag seine and increase the minnow species count.

cheers,
Dave

----------
David A. Neely
Dept. of Biology, St. Louis University
St. Louis, MO 63103 USA
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