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Collecting Report for Ohio 5-9-98
As planned, Tyson Kramer from Akron, Klaus Schoening from Cincinnati, and I
did some hard core fish hunting last Saturday here in Central Ohio. It was
a perfect day, weather wise - mostly sunny, about 72 F. Our fears that the
streams would be flooded were realized when we arrived at Bokes Creek (my
mom insists this is pronounced "Boggs") in Union county. We gingerly waded
in (my new waders got broke in real quick) and discovered that it was quite
deep! Good current too. So we stayed close to the banks and seined
around. Also went through a temporarily flooded back channel. Here we
found small green sunfish, grass pickerel, large and small golden shiners,
smallmouth bass, crawdads and one 7 inch white sucker with some kind of
long red worm under the skin on it's nose. Oh, the minnows had some anchor
worms in them too. Also practiced a little with my new cast net. Tyson
landed another 7 inch sucker with that. The cast net is useful when one
doesn't want to wade out over one's head!
Slightly daunted by our experience there, we decided to head over to the
upper Big Darby Creek just south of Rt 33. This site, though high, was
much more accessible. Here we hit the jack pot! We fished all afternoon
and found the following species:
southern redbelly dace, troutperch, rainbow, orange throat, johnny, fantail
and greenside darters, rose fin shiners, white and hogsuckers, carp,
blackstripe topminnows, mottled sculpins, stone rollers, blacknose dace,
crappie, rock bass, green sunfish, blunt nose minnows, bullhead minnows,
smallmouth bass, creek chubs and other assorted minnows and shiners.
These were all in a fairly short stretch of the stream which was maybe
25-30 foot at it's widest. This experience really says a lot for the
diversity of life that can be found in a quality stream. The Big Darby is
famous for this.
The highlight for me was the troutperch which I had never seen alive
before. They are apparently not too abundant this far south. The
stoneroller, rose fins, darters and bluntnose minnows were in breeding
colors - a sight to see. Also found one large Creek Chub with huge
breeding tubercles - more like horns - in a line down each side of it's
head. Quite distinctive.
This was a great trip and has put me in the mood for more! Looking forward
to doing northern Indiana this weekend!
Mark Binkley
Columbus Ohio USA <))><
mbinkley at earthling_net
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him
to use "the Net" and he won't bother you for weeks.