Johnsfolly

A young man walks into a bar carrying a 12 ga shotgun and a full bucket of manure. He walks up to the bartender and demands, "Gimme a beer!" The bartender says, "Not a problem, I'll get it right away." Then he serves the young man. The man takes the glass and drinks the entire beer in a single gulp, picks up the bucket, throws the manure into the air and blasts it with the shotgun. He then walks out. Five days later the same young man comes back into the bar. Again he is holding the shotgun and another full bucket of manure. He struts up to the bar and orders another beer. "Whoa there fella, we're still cleaning up from your last visit.. What was that about anyway?" asked the bartender. The young man explained, "I am training to be a politician. From what I have heard, to do so I need to train and be able to drink Beer, shoot the $#!+, dissapear for a few days, come back and see if someone else has cleaned up the mess that I left behind..."🤣

Congrats @Ham to you and @FishnDave. Still more time for a another shot at tarpon. Looking forward to seeing and hearing more from the trip.

Congrats Ollie for getting it done with the topwater! I hope that your back heals up quickly.

One of my bucket list fish!

She is very tolerant. I have close to 1400 stored in boxes in the closet.

I do miss getting Guiness in Ireland. So much better than you get here. Have a great time in Dublin.

The oldest brewery in the US coming out of Pottsville PA. They used to have the brewery on the can labels and the number of years since it opened. So every year they had to redo their cans. I have many of those cans in different years.

@Seth congrats to you and your family on your successful turkey hunts. We haven't been turkey hunting for the last four years. My daughter shot a big gobbler her first time out during youth season and we haven't been back out since 🙄.

I suspect that you may double that total soon😉!

That is awesome Brett! They have caught a couple of toads! Tell the guys that we think that they are doing great and hope for good luck at Greer!

Congrats Jeff! Sounds like a nice variety. @rps do you know if they stocked saugeyes in Beaver?

@Daryk Campbell Sr I agree with Dave that it is likely a green sunfish hybrid. Looks like there might a little bluegill in the mix somewhere.

Great Job Marty! I hope you're taking Pat soon.

Congrats Dave on the hitting the century mark on those swamp muskies! That's only about 20X more bowfin than I have caught lifetime😉. That's a nice black bullhead as well.

It's a musky. Nice catch.

I would be up there as many evenings as Sue would let me if I didn't have to work 🙄.

Nice hunting guys! Hope that you have success on a turkey when the season opens. Sue has been looking and we have found none so far. It is so dry this spring, that I have my doubts about finding a bunch.

If they are there, they are a blast to catch.

Rick in Maryland it is catch and release. In Delaware's Indian river inlet and inshore areas you can keep up to 10. Lots of guys then use them as bait for bluefish, stripers, and catfish. I believe that these fish are not on a spawning run which is why they are not protected. They enter the bays with the tide and feed in the bay then head back out to the ocean. There is a river that empties in the Chesapeake bay, runs through Maryland and down from Delware where the shad are catch and release.

I am a shad addict. I have not really had a fish after fish white bass trip in the midwest. So shad is the migratory hard fighting species out this way that I look forward to catch in the spring. The last couple of years we have started the shad season with a fishing trip down to the Tar River in North Carolina. We would catch the big American or white shad. Then we would take a few trips if possible to the Susquehanna river and tributaries for hickory shad and possible river herring. 05Apr23 Our first trip to Deer Creek. It's a 2 hour drive each way. So we didn't get up to the creek until about 10 to 10:30 am. The creek was low and clear. We started with fishing tandem shad dart with a flutter spoon about 14 to 16 inches behind the dart. Lots of casts but no bites. After about an hour the water started to rise. River herring came in and we thought that we would get some shad following with the increase in water depth. Fished for three more hours for shad. I lost one and Livie didn't get any love from the shad. With the clear water we did take advantage of the micros particularly the minnows and darters. We caught several micro species. Banded Killifish Tessellated darters Spottail shiners (Lifer for Livie) Livie caught this hybrid sunfish. I think that it is a green x pumpkinseed hybrid. Any thoughts on this sunfish hybrid would be appreciated. So we left at 2:30 pm to go get lunch and then headed home. I got an update from Cole, a guy that I contact through INAT. He fished that same spot from 4:30 to 7:30. He was using a similar tandem dart/spoon combo in green/chartreuse dart and spoon similar to what I was using. That is because I told him what has worked for me in the past. He caught over 50 shad on that trip. He had not caught a hickory shad until this year. 09Apr23 Okay tried to get on the shad again. Went up on Easter Sunday trying to fish the afternoon since the afternoon bite seemed to be the ticket. We fished a small creek for dace and chubs. We caught only a couple of creek chubs. No love from the rosyside dace in the creek. We got to the shad creek about 4:45 and the water was dropping. Only a few people fishing. Sue was with us and we made cast after cast. Many times we got hung up on the rocks as the water was falling. Broke off many spoons and darts. We didn't know that they had shut of the water from the dam upstream from us. I lost one shad due to a knot slip which was infuriating. Livie was the star with actually hooking up and landing the only shad from our group. Since the water was so low as the day went on, Livie was able to wade out and pick up a bunch of jigs, darts and spoons from the rocks. A couple of them were ours 😁 (white spoon, green/chart, and two red/white darts in the photo). 14Apr23 Cole is a grad student and lives about 35 to 40 mins from Deer creek/Conowingo Dam. He found great success fishing just up at the dam in the evenings. I got out of work early on Friday afternoon. Livie and I ran up to the Conowingo dam on the Susquehanna. We were going to meet Cole at the fisherman's park pier. We got there about 4:50 pm. Cole was there about 40 mins before us and caught one shad. We fished the tandem dart/spoon combo again. The water was running about >5K CFU. So the strategy was to cast out and let baits work downstream of the pier. We picked a spot along the rail and started to fish. I fished the yellow/white 1/4 oz dart that Livie found and a silver spoon. It didn't take long to feel that thump and it was fish on! Got slimed by the first hickory shad of the year! Livie soon followed with her first of the night as well. On a white and green spoon. As it got later in the evening, the shad were turning on. We found how far we needed to cast and let out line such what we are in the spot when the line straightened out downstream. The fish didn't mind if you just let the baits work or if you pulled the baits upstream then let it flutter back downstream. You can feel the fish bump the baits. It seemed like you would get two to three bumps and then a solid hit. I landed about 10 to 12 on the silver spoon then switched to a yellow/orange spoon. That was the ticket for way more bites. I even had a few doubles (like the following) which the heavy current felt like you had a five pound fish on the line. From 7:15 to 8 pm it was lights out. Cole, Livie and I were catching fish after fish. Cole My largest hickory shad ever. A roe shad that was almost 19 inches and felt close to 3 lbs. I caught 45 hickory shad. The second best landing for me was a surprise American shad! These are not common in this river. So super excited catching one. We had a great time! I hope that we can get back up there again before the run comes to an end. If not, it was a memorable season from the lows to the highs!

I like this little sunfish!

Shouldn't be long before you reach this goal!

To me this is a cool success story. With continued habitat improvements across their range, this strategy may be successful in other areas of the country for these endangered salamanders. MDC confirms first zoo-raised hellbender successfully reproducing in the wild Missouri hits significant milestone in endangered hellbender population recovery. JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) announces a significant milestone in population recovery efforts of the endangered Ozark hellbender. A zoo-raised hellbender has successfully reproduced within the Current River. “We are very excited to announce this news,” said Missouri State Herpetologist Jeff Briggler. “This is the first documented event of a zoo-raised animal fathering a clutch of eggs in the wild.” Rivers in southern Missouri and adjacent northern Arkansas once supported up to 27,000 Ozark hellbenders. Today, fewer than 1,000 exist in the world – so few that the Ozark hellbender was added to the federal endangered species list in October 2011. BACKGROUND Hellbenders are large aquatic salamanders. Missouri is the only state that contains both recognized subspecies of North American hellbenders: the Ozark hellbender and eastern hellbender, both of which are listed as endangered both by the state of Missouri and by the federal government. The primary threats are habitat alteration and degradation, over-collecting, disease, predation, and degraded water quality. Hellbenders are long-lived (with a 30-year lifespan), slow-to-mature amphibians that seldom venture far within the river. Numerous wrinkly folds of skin along the hellbender’s sides provide increased surface area for respiration. Capillaries near the surface of the hellbender’s wrinkly skin absorb oxygen directly from the water. Because the species requires cool, well-oxygenated, clean running water to survive, hellbenders are a major indicator of overall health of a river or stream. The adult hellbender is one of the largest species of salamanders in North America, with its closest relatives being the giant salamanders of China and Japan, which can reach 5-feet or more in length. HELLBENDER RESTORATION MDC partnered with the Ron and Karen Goellner Center for Hellbender Conservation, a part of the Saint Louis Zoo WildCare Institute, and other agencies in the early 2000s to breed the salamanders in captivity and rear eggs collected from the wild in order to combat drastic population declines. Once the captive-bred larvae reached between 3-8 years old, they were released in their native Ozark aquatic ecosystem. Biologists began releasing a few zoo-raised hellbenders in Missouri in 2008, later increasing the number of released animals to 1,000 or more per year beginning in 2012. Since the conception of the breeding and raising of this animal in captivity, more than 10,000 Ozark and eastern hellbenders raised at the Saint Louis Zoo and MDC hatchery have been released into their native rivers. To help recover this species within the Ozark Highlands, biologists monitor the population status of both wild animals and released animals reared in captivity, as well as locate natural nests within rivers during the fall in order to collect eggs that can be reared and released in the future. “The majority of the hellbenders existing in the wild and all 10,000-plus released animals have a small chip embedded under their skin with a unique number to allow us to identify the animals in future encounters,” Briggler explained. Though many have been released to the wild, most hellbenders are only just now becoming mature enough to breed. Because very few nests with eggs are found each year, capturing the event of a male attending a clutch of eggs is a rare event. “We’re lucky to find 20 nests in the wild a year and finding a tagged father that was raised at the Saint Louis Zoo was like finding a needle in a haystack,” said Briggler. “We have been patiently waiting for this significant achievement to occur.” In October 2022, biologists found that needle when they came across a tagged male Ozark hellbender that was attending a clutch of healthy, well-developed eggs on the Current River. The animal was attending a clutch of 128 eggs. Upon a later return to the nest, the eggs were beginning the process of hatching with the father protecting them. “Our ultimate goal was to see the successful reproduction of a zoo-reared animal in the wild,” explained Briggler. “And we’ve now accomplished that goal in our journey to save the unique Ozark salamander.” FROM EGG TO FATHER This male Ozark hellbender was collected from a natural nest of eggs in the Current River in the fall of 2013 by MDC and National Park Service staff, then transported to the Saint Louis Zoo where the eggs were hatched and reared. “We have a dedicated team of hellbender keepers, life-support systems technicians, and veterinary staff who work tirelessly to make sure these animals get the best care possible at the Saint Louis Zoo,” explained Justin Elden, Curator of Herpetology and Aquatics at the Saint Louis Zoo, and Director of the Saint Louis Zoo WildCare Institute Ron and Karen Goellner Center for Hellbender Conservation. The Saint Louis Zoo has nearly 20 years of experience and expertise in rearing hellbenders and has their care down to an exact science. “This experience allowed for this animal to flourish for the six years it was reared at the zoo and prepare it for its release to the wild,” said Elden. “Caring for hellbenders through their lives, from tiny eggs to sub-adults, takes a tremendous amount of work, but it’s absolutely worth it knowing we’re aiding in the conservation of wild animals and wild places.” The animal was released into the Current River in July 2019. “At the time of release, the male weighed 5.6 ounces (160 grams) and measured 11.8 inches (30 cm),” said Elden. “At the time his nest was discovered in the fall of 2022, he weighed 8.9 ounces (252 grams) and measured 14.4 inches (36.6 cm).” Based on the hellbender’s size, Briggler noted it was likely the animal’s first year reproducing. “It was exciting to not only see the growth and healthy appearance of this father after living three years in the wild, but to also see such a healthy animal successfully reproduce,” said Briggler. Eggs generally hatch in about 45 days, but it can take longer with colder water conditions. Upon hatching, the helpless larvae will slowly grow and develop limbs under the protection of the father for several months. In late winter or early spring, the larvae will venture outside the nesting chamber to disperse into the surrounding river habitat. Larvae will breathe with external gills for a few years before they finally absorb their gills and take on the wrinkly appearance of an adult. “Finding a zoo-raised Ozark hellbender reproducing in the wild is one of the greatest accomplishments for our Zoo’s WildCare Institute conservation efforts and we are incredibly proud to be partnered with MDC on saving this species,” said Elden. In addition to the Saint Louis Zoo, MDC partnered with the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission to enhance propagation efforts to ensure hellbenders remain a part of Missouri’s biodiversity. “It is our hope that such wild breeding events by zoo-reared hellbenders will increasingly become more common as more released animals become mature,” noted Briggler. To learn more about hellbenders, visit MDC’s online Field Guide at https://short.mdc.mo.gov/4M9. Learn more about the Saint Louis Zoo WildCare Institute Ron and Karen Goellner Center for Hellbender Conservation online at https://short.mdc.mo.gov/4MC. TOP PHOTO: MDC announces the first zoo-reared Ozark hellbender has successfully fathered a clutch of eggs (pictured) on the Current River. MDC partnered with the Saint Louis Zoo and other agencies to restore threatened hellbender populations to Missouri. MIDDLE PHOTO: The first zoo-raised Ozark hellbender to successfully reproduce in the wild pictured above. The animal was raised from a clutch of eggs at the Saint Louis Zoo and released on the Current River in 2019. BOTTOM PHOTO: MDC Herpetologist Jeff Briggler (left) holds the first zoo-reared Ozark hellbender to reproduce in the wild. Pictured with Briggler is MDC Ozark District Supervisor John Ackerson (middle) and National Park Service Natural Resource Manager Victoria Grant (right). All photos courtesy of MDC Herpetologist Jeff Briggler

I should have mentioned that going back out to fish with you in the spring is a much better alternative than Aug🤣. Though I still want another shot at those grass carp and shortnose gar.

Thanks. I was going to say the same.