Family Reunion - Lifer Trip on the Side

[Johnsfolly]

I have put off making this post due mainly to time constraints. Many on here may know that though my Wife, youngest daughter and I have been living out in Maryland for the last 7 years, my son and his family are still out in KS and now my oldest daughter is in Louisville KY. We had a planned reunion trip back in September to see them all and have some fun in the KC area. With any travel, especially when it's out beyond a day away by car, I like to plan a fishing trip or two to try for new species, aka lifers. We had plans to drive out to Louisville and then onto KC. I would go out to Ft Riley and pick up my son and family and then back to the Great Wolf lodge. After a few days we would make the return trip. I didn't make big plans for any fishing stops on the way out. The only one was to try a small creek in KS prior to getting my son. Most of the plans were to stop at several spots on the way home with a lot of hope for fishing near my daughter in Kentucky. (this will be photo heavy for @snagged in outlet 3😉)

I tried the KS creek prior to picking up my son. I was hoping for redfin shiners or Johnny darters. With only 35 mins to fish I did catch fish but nothing new 😐. I did see a large flock of turkeys with several heavy longbeards. No hunting in this preserve.

Southern Redbelly dace

Plains Orangethroat darter

Common Shiner

I did one planned night trip in KS. Again hoping for Johnny darters as well as stonecats. I got frustrated by a lot of spooky madtoms and non-biting darters. After a while I was fishing under a rock where I saw a dark striped madtom, I ended up catching a slender madtom instead.

I did mention that this was a family reunion at Great Wolf Lodge😉

This igloo cooler with wheels was the best $30 spent. The grandkids spent a lot of time pulling each other around in it.

As we were heading home we spent a day in Columbia. I fished a creek where I had thought I had seen Johnny darters. I fished for an hour or so and only caught Orangethroat darters. I couldn't be unhappy since this was the first microfish that we had ever caught and got us into microfishing back i nteh early days of my obssession😅.

I had a couple of other creeks near Columba for possible redfins and Johnny darters. Low water and steep muddy banks kept me from fishing those effectively or at all in the couple of hours I had available to fish. When we headed to Louisville, I had a couple of spots that held headwater darters and a whole slough of possible species. One of the early tropical storms came and dumped 1.5 to 2 inches of rain and blew out all of my target creeks. The rain so soured my mood that we didn't even get up to Florence to see @Daryk Campbell Sr. Now that my daughter lives there it will be easier to justify going back. We took off for West Virginia to fish a couple of creeks. WV did not get the rain so they were at normal or low flows. The first stop was a creek that I had caught my only western blacknose dace a few years back and I wanted Livie to get a chance at them. The creek was nearly dry but there was a plunge pool below a little spillway that had fish - actually a lot of fish 😉.

It didn't take long to get several fish in the photo bags including Livie's lifer W blacknose dace.

Lots of creek chubs

A couple of S redbelly dace including this nice male.

Livie even found a queen snake.

The last spot that we fished was up near Morgantown WV. The target was banded darters. I should have brought a small meshed net, since we hooked and lost several before getting them in hand and one was likely a banded darter 😒. We did catch rainbow darters and I had one rosyface shiner (crappy photos).

Since I was targeting darters and shiners, all of these fish were caught on microhooks and Tanagos with small pieces of worm. We had fun and I was pretty frustrated about not catching a single lifer, but I will get over it on the next trip out that way.

 

[ness]

Good old Great Wolf Lodge! Pretty popular spot for my boys and their friends to have birthday parties. We haven't been since they grew up  

When my daughter was young she took horseback riding lessons on that land that is now the Legends/NASCAR track, etc. The ONLY thing around there was the water tower. She's 33 now. It's changed a bit

[FishnDave]

That's a bunch of cool fish, @Johnsfolly !

[snagged in outlet 3]

3 hours ago, Johnsfolly said:

d I have been living out in Maryland for the last 7 years,

It’s been 7 years!?!?    Doesn’t seem nearly that long ago.   Covid years jacked up my timeline😐

[Johnsfolly]

4 hours ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

It’s been 7 years!?!?    Doesn’t seem nearly that long ago.   Covid years jacked up my timeline😐

 I was travelling back and forth from here to Missouri a lot that first 18 months and spent a lot of time in hotels🙄.