trojannemo
Fishaholic
hey guys.
I wanted to start the year right, so made plans to go dipnetting New Year's Day in Big Cypress. however my plans for dipnetting for two turned into hiking, fishing, dipnetting, and restaurant-eating for 7, so ended up with very little actual time for dipnetting
still, considering the heavy rains and limited collecting time I think we turned up a good variety of fish 
on the way in to the hiking trail in Big Cypress I stopped at a spot I had visited before that I knew was full of Florida Gar.
As expected we found countless amounts of gar, of all sizes - what I didn't expect was to find them all in such a close group, most of them at the surface of the water...and the water was full of small fish. I first I thought they must be gar babies because the gars really seemed to be protecting something, but a scoop of the net turned up countless Eastern Mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki), American Flagfish (Jordanella floridae), at least one Least Killifish (Heterandria formosa), Golden Topminnows (Fundulus chrysotus) - both regular and melanistic forms, and a Fundulus sp. fish that I have not been able to identify (pictures below)...but no gar babies. to give you an idea of how many gar were there, with my dipnet i caught TWO gars in one swoop when I wasn't even trying!
the water was clear enough to see there were at least 5 other types of fish there that I didn't catch, but unfortunately I was bamboozled by the other members of the group into going hiking first ("we'll stop here on the way back") and only spent about 5 minutes there
i'm certain i'm going back to that spot to really check it out well
anyways, here are some of the pictures:
this is about 1/4 of the width of the area i was in...i'm talking about maybe 8 feet at the most from this side to the other end, and maybe 1-2 feet deep only...and so full of fish!
as I said, I had very little time there, this is one of 3 scoops I did at the top of the water:
the second scoop I caught the two gars, and they released so much slime that they covered the other fish, so i just put them all back.
then the third scoop caught some more gambusia to use as feeders for my turtle and cichlids. i must have taken home 100-150 feeders?
beautiful little flagfish:
when I put the feeders in the turtle tank i noticed this gambusia had a striking coloration to it.
its body was half black and half regular coloration. of the thousands of gambusia I have caught, I've never seen this before?
and here is the unidentified Fundulus sp. fish...i've caught F. chrysotus and F. confluentus, and these didnt look like either.
the bigger one had an eye-like mark on the dorsal fin. I also noticed that they were probably one of the most difficult fish to photograph because they insisted on putting their bodies straight, rather than lay sideways like most fish do when they're in my hands
Can you help me identify this fish?
---
on the way out from Big Cypress I wanted to stop at a couple of places down Tamiami Trail. unfortunately we lost a lot of time due to the rains and when it finally stopped raining we had less than an hour to drive and find a spot. this first place was just great. you could see the fish, and the water must have been less than 2 feet deep. unfortunately we also noticed a 8 foot gator that swam under us, literally under us as the mouth of the connector to the other side of the canal was under us.
undaunted, I decided to try my luck with the castnet before the gator decided to return. i was partly encouraged by some 3 or 4 albino catfish (no clue on the species) that we saw, but did not catch. anyways, here's what I caught the ONE time I used the castnet:
spotted sunfish? this is probably the biggest sunfish i've ever caught...
spotted tilapia - caught 2-3 of these (in one cast remember):
bluegill sunfish - caught 5+ of these:
i think also bluegill? big coloration difference to above fish...
what is this sunfish? had a LOT of green in it, could be it a spotted x bluegill hybrid?
and last but not least, also in the same cast, caught this catfish.
can you help me identify it? I've caught walking catfish near this location, so I assumed that was it at the time, but I did notice the fish had a very deep body, a brown coloration rather than black, and was covered in spots, whereas the walking catfish i've caught before have been all black.
so what fish is this?
in this location i've had some good luck with dipnetting in the past (this is where i caught the eel!), but i think the cold temperatures had driven the small fish deeper, so almost caught nothing on the dipnets:
small spotted sunfish:
small warmouth:
and swamp darters:
night came on and we had to leave. i plan to go back, as I can see a lot of potential with the reduced water levels and cold temperatures...
last picture for the night...the cichlids really enjoyed the treat they got yesterday:
hope you enjoyed the pictures!
I wanted to start the year right, so made plans to go dipnetting New Year's Day in Big Cypress. however my plans for dipnetting for two turned into hiking, fishing, dipnetting, and restaurant-eating for 7, so ended up with very little actual time for dipnetting
still, considering the heavy rains and limited collecting time I think we turned up a good variety of fish on the way in to the hiking trail in Big Cypress I stopped at a spot I had visited before that I knew was full of Florida Gar.
As expected we found countless amounts of gar, of all sizes - what I didn't expect was to find them all in such a close group, most of them at the surface of the water...and the water was full of small fish. I first I thought they must be gar babies because the gars really seemed to be protecting something, but a scoop of the net turned up countless Eastern Mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki), American Flagfish (Jordanella floridae), at least one Least Killifish (Heterandria formosa), Golden Topminnows (Fundulus chrysotus) - both regular and melanistic forms, and a Fundulus sp. fish that I have not been able to identify (pictures below)...but no gar babies. to give you an idea of how many gar were there, with my dipnet i caught TWO gars in one swoop when I wasn't even trying!
the water was clear enough to see there were at least 5 other types of fish there that I didn't catch, but unfortunately I was bamboozled by the other members of the group into going hiking first ("we'll stop here on the way back") and only spent about 5 minutes there
i'm certain i'm going back to that spot to really check it out well anyways, here are some of the pictures:
this is about 1/4 of the width of the area i was in...i'm talking about maybe 8 feet at the most from this side to the other end, and maybe 1-2 feet deep only...and so full of fish!
as I said, I had very little time there, this is one of 3 scoops I did at the top of the water:
the second scoop I caught the two gars, and they released so much slime that they covered the other fish, so i just put them all back.
then the third scoop caught some more gambusia to use as feeders for my turtle and cichlids. i must have taken home 100-150 feeders?
beautiful little flagfish:
when I put the feeders in the turtle tank i noticed this gambusia had a striking coloration to it.
its body was half black and half regular coloration. of the thousands of gambusia I have caught, I've never seen this before?
and here is the unidentified Fundulus sp. fish...i've caught F. chrysotus and F. confluentus, and these didnt look like either.
the bigger one had an eye-like mark on the dorsal fin. I also noticed that they were probably one of the most difficult fish to photograph because they insisted on putting their bodies straight, rather than lay sideways like most fish do when they're in my hands
Can you help me identify this fish?
---
on the way out from Big Cypress I wanted to stop at a couple of places down Tamiami Trail. unfortunately we lost a lot of time due to the rains and when it finally stopped raining we had less than an hour to drive and find a spot. this first place was just great. you could see the fish, and the water must have been less than 2 feet deep. unfortunately we also noticed a 8 foot gator that swam under us, literally under us as the mouth of the connector to the other side of the canal was under us.
undaunted, I decided to try my luck with the castnet before the gator decided to return. i was partly encouraged by some 3 or 4 albino catfish (no clue on the species) that we saw, but did not catch. anyways, here's what I caught the ONE time I used the castnet:
spotted sunfish? this is probably the biggest sunfish i've ever caught...
spotted tilapia - caught 2-3 of these (in one cast remember):
bluegill sunfish - caught 5+ of these:
i think also bluegill? big coloration difference to above fish...
what is this sunfish? had a LOT of green in it, could be it a spotted x bluegill hybrid?
and last but not least, also in the same cast, caught this catfish.
can you help me identify it? I've caught walking catfish near this location, so I assumed that was it at the time, but I did notice the fish had a very deep body, a brown coloration rather than black, and was covered in spots, whereas the walking catfish i've caught before have been all black.
so what fish is this?
in this location i've had some good luck with dipnetting in the past (this is where i caught the eel!), but i think the cold temperatures had driven the small fish deeper, so almost caught nothing on the dipnets:
small spotted sunfish:
small warmouth:
and swamp darters:
night came on and we had to leave. i plan to go back, as I can see a lot of potential with the reduced water levels and cold temperatures...
last picture for the night...the cichlids really enjoyed the treat they got yesterday:
hope you enjoyed the pictures!
