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NFC: late sunday afternoon fishing

Hey Folks,
						It's 6:45pm, just got in from a late afternoon exotic removal excursion
to southwest Miami and here's what I found. I was in C-4 canal on the Tamiami
Trail and was using my trusty dipnet. The canals here in south Florida have a
grass that grows out into the water from the embankments, a couple of feet in
places, forming dense mats and under these mats, both the natives and exotics
hang out. 
			Out of an hour or so of dipping up under the grass I caught 47 exotics
ranging in size from 1" to 12". I also caught 8 damnbusia, 3 blue fin killies
and 1 bass at 3". This is an unusually low native count. In more healthely
populated canals like in Broward, I get maybe 1 cichlid out of every 7 fish
netted. 
			The species most prevalant in todays venture was the Jaguar Guapote Cichlid
( Cichlasoma managuense ), including 2 adults at 10" and 12". If they make it
through the night I will photograph them tomorrow and then put them down.  The
other species were Mayans ( C. urophthalmus ), at 1"to 3" and C. bimaculatum
2" and 
2 1/2". 
		   The variation in sizes tells me that these cichlids breed year round. I
have noticed this throughout south Florida. 
			Half way through the fishing, the handle on my dipnet bent in two  : (   It
is a monorail net wiath an aluminum handle that just snapped in two in my
attempt to bend it back. 
			I went to my truck and pulled out a hacksaw and cut the broken end off.
Then I took a painter's heavy duty extention pole, I had ready knowing this
would eventually happen, pulled out the interior rod and inserted the end of
the dipnet handle and voila. I now have a dipnet that will hold up to the
rough handling I put it through in my quest for them damn cichlids.  : ) As I
finished up the fishin, the sun began setting over the Everglades, so I sat
and watched and wondered,      				where have all the natives gone.
 All in all, a good trip.      TTNT
Daryl Roche
Exotic Removal Program, NFC
   
BTW,  I am using the Most Complete Colored Lexicon of Cichlids to ID these
fish and the nomenclature is different i.e.
many of the Cichlasoma species are Hericthys, with the same genus. Is this the
most updated rendition for IDing?    Josh?   ; )
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