Was out on a creek cleanup this morning and discovered two nice, new feeder creeks and a pretty deep pool below a culvert. Should be making some trips to those in the coming weeks to see what's there!
The Official North American Native Fish Collecting Thread
- Thread starter divemaster99
- Start date
Already have one
, kept the first one I ever caught a few weeks ago back in my first post on the thread.
I went collecting last Tuesday and I came back with some rocks so that sums up how it went lol. 5 minute walk so it wasn't bad. Few more weeks and we're in business
A few weeks ago my daughter brought home a baby crawfish she had caught and asked if she could keep it. It's been a couple of years since I took down my last aquarium (a 75 gallon sunfish tank) but we have small Beta tank she used to keep a Beta in so I figured we would set it up for the mudbug. I had recently been seeing some attractive fish while fishing a small retention pond so I thought we'd go catch one or two of those to put with the crawfish. My daughter and I went to the pond with a dipnet and caught a number of what I discovered are Golden Topminnows, they are really pretty with the males red tail and the golden flecks along the flanks of the females. Looking at the size of the topminnows I knew that little betta tank wouldn't be big enough so we popped into the pet store (which is right in front of the retention pond) and grabbed a 20 long tank, stand, hood and light and a filter and brought it home along with the minnows to find the crawfish dead. I set up the tank with the topminnows in it and started reading about them and saw that they are tolerent of brackish water, so I immediately thought "Sailfin Mollies". This past Sunday I took my daughter crabbing, and in addition to 126 delicious crabs, she cast netted a bunch of pretty sheepshead minnows and we dip netted a bunch of sailfin mollies. So 2 weeks and about $250 after starting with the idea of keeping one baby crawfish, my kid now has a really cool brackish tank of topminnows, sheepshead minnows and sailfin mollies, plus a few grass shrimp, all that she helped collect.
Every summer I go snorkeling 2-5 times a week in a place called peche Island on Lake st Clair Ontario Canada. The water's crystal clear and I never see anyone there. I also has a nice rocky bottom so it holds just about every darter and shiner you can imagine. It also holds a great number of madtoms and small to lobster sized crayfish. I also see smallmouth bass follow behind me by mere feet, waiting to snatch anything that swims away as I over turn rocks XD. I don't really have much space or time to set up a native tank but I will as soon as I have the chance, since I always have access to such beautiful fish. I also got a nice action camera and hope to get some nice underwater footage this year!
This video's old as hell so don't hurt your ears XD, It's an old post of mine where I give advice on breeding crays.
[video=youtube;x7JPBG6nx3c]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7JPBG6nx3c[/video]
Thanks, Infact they're so active they escaped my tank several times. You REALLY have to seal that tank well. I actually bred them for food for my 11" rock bass I used to have. Biggest rock bass I ever caught... Sadly he died of old age over a year ago.
