2016 Fish Species

[Ham]

It was Long Ear Sunfish, Green Sunfish, Black Spotted Top Minnow, Striped Shiner, Dusky Striped Shiner, Creek Chub, Rainbow Darter, and Studfish. I did not get the Studfish.  

[Johnsfolly]

Here are photos of one of the cardinal shiners that I caught and the banded sculpin from the Spring River.

I also caught this longear sunfish in the Spring river. I had never seen one with so much turquoise before.

An orangethroat darter from Prairie State Park. I caught this one on the #26 tanago hooks. The coloration is different than others I have caught. So I don't know if this is a young male, a post-spawn male, or maybe a different subspecies. I'm still researching the subspecies, since there are supposed to be at least three subspecies throughout MO.

[Ham]

Some of the different fish I catch I am NEVER going to really be able to ID because I am NEVER going to do scale counts or fin ray counts. I haven't done a great job of photographing suckers so that I can see fin shape and mouth shape to try to work them out.

Great job John!

[jdmidwest]

First ever for me this weekend, a yellow perch.  Caught them in TN on Pickwick Lake, 15 or 20 of them.  And a Chain Pickerel in TN, my first in that state.

Tough weekend, wind and waves.  Bass were either worried about mating or lost somewhere.  But we found a place and had fun with light gear catching the perch, pickerel, and some yellow bass.  Found a couple of TN morels too.

[Johnsfolly]

That's a good looking perch. In PA when fishing highly pressured lakes, the best perch you could hope for would be about 4 to 6 inches in length. Sounds like a fun trip.

[jdmidwest]

It was an unexpected pleasure.  I could have tossed them in the livewell and had a good feed.  But after a weekend of being beaten up bass fishing, it was nice to feel something on the end of the rod.

I love  catching pickerels, anywhere.  That lake was the last place I expected to find one.  I had caught one on Sat. in 3' swells fishing some shallow flats for spawning bass.  It was unexpected, but a welcome fight.

[Johnsfolly]

I used to catch a lot of pickerel in the Poconos when I lived in PA. In Missouri, I have only caught one chain pickerel fishing the 11-point River and a couple of grass pickerel in Crane creek. Fun to catch. I'm looking to tangle with a musky someday.

I was hoping to post about catching a new life list species after this weekend. However, the topminnows are kicking my butt. On Friday I found a couple topminnows in a local stream known to have red and redfin shiners. The minnows were in the deep pool under the bridge. Went out Sunday with my wife spotting above on the bridge directing me to where the fish were headed and just could not get a bait in front of them. Again they were always 2 to 3' further than I could reach with my rod. I think I will have to break out the 9" flyrod and put on my spinning tackle to get the bait in front of these guys. My wife went off to look for morels (posted under the mushroom discussions) and I went to find fish that were more ready to take the bait. Caught mostly chubs, longear sunfish, but did catch my first couple of commons shiners for 2016.

I also added white bass and hybrid striper to the 2016 list on Saturday down at Truman dam. I hoping that we get enough rain to get more morels out, but not enough to muddy up the streams.

[Al Agnew]

While I'm not quite ready to pursue the goal of catching all these species of small, obscure fish that Johnsfolly is, I'm finding the quest for them described here to be entertaining.  I happen to be researching fish species of the Meramec River system for a book I'm writing at present, and here are some interesting and maybe daunting facts I dug up...

37 different species of the minnow family (Cyprinidae) have been collected from the Meramec and tributaries.

3 species of madtoms.

3 species of topminnows.

2 species of sculpins.

Mosquitofish.

Brook silversides.

16 species of darters.

17 species of suckers.  

Mooneye, goldeye, gizzard shad, skipjack herring

Those are all fish that nobody would consider typical for anglers to pursue, but all could theoretically be caught by hook and line. Atogether, at least 130 different species of fish have been collected in the Meramec Basin alone.

[Johnsfolly]

Al - do you know how many miles of water make up the Meramec river drainage system? Ham mentioned to me the other day that there were about the same number species found in the Current river system. It would take years to learn all the haunts of each of these fish and a tremendous amount of legwork to get access to all of those waters.  I would love to just get 11 or so new fish and am really looking at the Meramec to get a couple of those species. Thanks for piquing my interest in this river system.

[Al Agnew]

I don't know how many miles there are of waters that would hold some kind of minnows or other small fish, but here's the scoop on how many miles there are of waters big enough to hold some bass:

Meramec--205 miles

Big--124 miles

Bourbeuse--140 miles

Huzzah--35 miles

Courtois--28 miles

Mineral Fork--16 miles

All other tributaries in the Meramec Basin...there are 22 creeks big enough to hold bass--187 miles

Total--approximately 735 miles!