Another Beaver Creek Micro

[Johnsfolly]

When I was trying for an Ozark Slam, I noticed a different colored topminnow in the mix of the northern studfish. I talked with some folks on whether those fish might be plains topminnows and received a seems likely and they are known to be in that creek system. After fishing Bennett Springs and the Niangua earlier in the morning, I headed to Beaver creek to try for these topminnows. This topminnow is a smaller fish than the studfish. They are also more olive in color, have a slight orange coloration in their fins, and a yellow stripe running from the dorsal fin to the head of the fish. The yellow stripe is readily seen and made it simple to differentiate them from the studfish. I hooked the first fish that I tried to catch. I got it into my camera bag and it jumped out as I was filling the bag with water. So no photo . I made several attempts at landing another fish. I pulled several right out of the water without getting a hook set. I even saw a pair spawning and pulled both of them from the water. Once they had that experience they shied away from the bait. The problem was that for every 5 to 10 studfish there were only two of these topminnows. Also they were much more skittish to my movements to position myself near enough to engage them with the bait. Finally I got another one hooked and into the bag.

Here's one shot that shows the yellow stripe on it's back.

This trip was worth the extra time to head to Rolla on my "way" home from Lebanon just to catch this new species. I wish that it had been a "supermale", which is fish with a bluish body and deep orange fins. I'll have to keep looking for that guy !