Ozark Fish Facts...

[Al Agnew]

I have a streak of curiosity that often leads me to get interested in things that perhaps not all that many people care about, and when you combine that with my passion for rivers and the Ozarks, it sometimes leads to me spending time learning lots of little facts for no other reason than because I'm interested. So I've decided to post some of these facts from time to time, facts on various Ozark fish species that probably aren't too well known. It probably won't help your fishing, but you might find them of passing interest.

According to my research, there are 144 species of fish native to the Ozarks. This includes species that are native to typical Ozark stream habitat, not species that are lowland or big river fish that make it up into the lower sections of the largest Ozark streams. There are a bunch of species, for instance, that are native to the Southeast Missouri lowlands but occasionally come up the Castor, Whitewater, St. Francis, and Black into the Ozark sections of these streams. The bowfin is a good example.

There are also 16 introduced species. We all know about striped bass, the various trout, and muskie, along with the carp. There is one sunfish species that has been introduced, and redeye bass, the bass species that is native to a few streams in Alabama and Georgia, was once introduced into the Spring River below Mammoth Spring, but apparently died out.

There are 40 native minnow species, 16 suckers, 13 catfish (a bunch of them are madtoms), 15 sunfish species (including the black bass), 30 species in the perch family (it includes walleye, sauger, and the rest are darters). There are 5 species of lampreys.

19 species are native ONLY to the Ozarks, and of those, several are native only to one or two river systems, including the redspot chub and Neosho madtom of the Neosho-Elk-Spring river system, the bluestriped darter of the Osage and Gasconade system, the Niangua Darter of the Osage system, the yoke darter of the upper White River system, and the yellow-cheeked darter of the Little Red system. Also, the Ozark bass, one of the three goggle-eye species of the Ozarks, is native only to the White River system.

Because the Ozarks is somewhat of an island of clear water streams surrounded by slower, murkier water, that explains the number of species native only to the Ozarks. In addition, five more species are native only to the Ozarks and Ouachitas to the south (and there are 11 species that are native only to the Ouachitas). However, some species are found both in the Ozarks and in one of the two nearest other regions that have clear water streams. Two species are found only in the Ozarks and the upper Mississippi River system of Minnesota and Wisconsin, while seven species are found only in the Ozarks and the mountains of Tennessee and Kentucky.

And then there are a few oddball species. A couple are found only in the Arkansas river system, but are found way out in western Kansas and Oklahoma in habitat completely different from their Ozark streams like the Mulberry. One is found up in the Great Lakes, and nowhere else except one part of the Ozarks, the northern brook lamprey. One, the Sabine shiner, is found in south Texas and the Ozarks.

At various times, I've probably had more than 50 of these species in my aquarium. The many minnow species are the easiest to keep, along with the madtoms and other catfish. Both types will eat about anything and are very hardy. The darters are often beautifully colored, but most prefer live food, small aquatic bugs, and are difficult to train to eat aquarium fish food. The sunfish tend to eat each other. I've never had any luck keeping suckers, including young redhorse and hogsuckers, alive for very long, and the sculpins also like live food too well.

[GloryDaze]

Wow... very interesting and thanks for sharing your knowledge

[countryred]

Cool read Al. thanks for sharing. I loved setting minnow trap in our local creeks as a kid. Green sunfish, chub minnows, crawfish and the occasional bullhead were the most common catches. I did catch an orange throated darter once, very cool fish for the tank. Made the mistake of adding a larger predator and the darter became lunch. I don't think we have very many up here in northeast Mo.

Stonerollers are another cool tank fish. I also had a baby snapping turtle. He would get picked on by a crawfish at feeding time. One day I came home and the crawfish was dismembered and the turtle was innocently sitting on his long.

I remember catching my first smallmouth as a kid. It was in otter creek which flows in to Mark Twain lake now. We also caught "muddpuppies", hellbenders,....."Eels.".. lamprays ..The ecosystems were different back then..

[fishinwrench]

Countryred, you just took me back to where I grew up. Odd thing, I've seen just about everything near the confluence of Otter Creek except an otter.

Good trotline sets were marked by nailing a spoonbill to a tree.

[countryred]

Wrench...I grew up stomping around that area. Plenty of danged otters there now. Fun place to learn to fish.

[jdmidwest]

Hunt down a pirate perch, its an interesting little creature. We rolled a few out doing a project on the Whitewater River System in college. I kept one in an aquarium for a while and fed it live creek minnows.

[ColdWaterFshr]

Have any cool photos to share of your favorites, Al? aquarium shots or otherwise from this region? an interesting subject -- the Ozarks being an island of clear water streams surrounded by flat land terrain/murky water. The more I travel, the more I appreciate what we have here.

[Hog Wally]

In my office I keep a revolving ozark stream ecosystem. I'm always looking for that oddball minnow to add. Just when I get it all perfect I go and add a predator and there goes the neighborhood. I swear I spend 10 hours a week staring at my tank. . Mature stone rollers by far the coolest characters. Dace minnows remind me of miniature pike.

[Al Agnew]

I had a couple of pirate perch that came from a small creek that runs into the St. Francis. Bob Todd actually trapped them, and told the MDC biologists about them and they told him that was the first time they'd ever been collected in the St. Francis river system. Had them for several years.

CWF, oddly enough I've never taken photos of my aquarium species. I should. Right now the aquarium is pretty sparse, with only a few stonerollers and bleeding shiners. I need to make a minnow collecting run to one of the nearby creeks. I'll keep predators for a while, then get tired of having to keep collecting live food for them and having them eat the other denizens, and go back to just keeping minnows. I once got five 1.5 inch shadow bass, and kept them for more than a year, by which time they'd gotten to about four inches. I kept them with longear sunfish and bluegill that were the same size, but those shadow bass were voracious. If one would get just a fraction of an inch bigger than anything else, it would start to eat anything smaller. But they just looked so cool.

I really love madtoms. I kept two madtoms for several years. They were about 1.5 inches when I got them, and by the time they died of old age they were nearly 6 inches long, which is far bigger than they usually get in streams.

[Chief Grey Bear]

I have a streak of curiosity that often leads me to get interested in things that perhaps not all that many people care about, and when you combine that with my passion for rivers and the Ozarks, it sometimes leads to me spending time learning lots of little facts for no other reason than because I'm interested. So I've decided to post some of these facts from time to time, facts on various Ozark fish species that probably aren't too well known. It probably won't help your fishing, but you might find them of passing interest.

According to my research, there are 144 species of fish native to the Ozarks. This includes species that are native to typical Ozark stream habitat, not species that are lowland or big river fish that make it up into the lower sections of the largest Ozark streams. There are a bunch of species, for instance, that are native to the Southeast Missouri lowlands but occasionally come up the Castor, Whitewater, St. Francis, and Black into the Ozark sections of these streams. The bowfin is a good example.

Did you get this info from Bill's book?

I have been holding out on getting it as there is another update due out soon. It may already be out but I haven't checked lately.