Fishing Trip

[cheirodon]

A little while ago I posted about a guppy eating monster I had 20 years ago. Well I went back to the river where I caught the initial one, and got me another, to show y'all whom I meant. So far, the name's Dormitatur Maculatus, and aparently he can grow up to 25 inches!
He's very mean, yet very beautiful. This one, caught wild is about 3 inches, and looks ragged as most wild fish do.

I put him back after the picture.

Good Halloween character!

 

[CFC]

Dosent look much like a D.maculatus im afraid, that name belongs to the Fat sleaper gobie,, this species lives in brackish water around esturies in central america and has a maximum size of 10", it is peaceful to all but very small fish. Unfortunatley without a little more information and a better look i have been unable to ID the fish in your picture yet.

 

[cheirodon]

This other guy is actually a snook (centropomis undecimalis). They grow to over 30 lbs.!

This one is a 4 to 5 incher, and he was HARD to catch! I finally brought him in around 1 am, under a swarm of mosquitoes that was driving me nuts. I'd read up some about these guys, and they're not the aquarium type, so this one went back too.

Also a very beautiful fish though...

 

[CFC]

You are one lucky guy cheirodon, i can only dream of being able to fish and catch fish to keep in a aquarium, few of the coldwater species we have in the UK lend themselves to life in captivity.
I did see a site advertising fishing trips on the amazon and if i had a spare £1000 would have booked my self up in a flash, well maybe one day

 

[cheirodon]

Dosent look much like a D.maculatus im afraid, that name belongs to the Fat sleaper gobie,, this species lives in brackish water around esturies in central america and has a maximum size of 10", it is peaceful to all but very small fish. Unfortunatley without a little more information and a better look i have been unable to ID the fish in your picture yet.

I'll try to post the technical data and picture with which I did the initial ID. It even told me that this one is a female! (Sociedad de Ciencias Naturales La Salle).

And yes, he was caught in brackish waters, near the coast, under mangrove roots. It's a river called the "Río Chico", that flows into canals, that then flow out to sea, so it's pretty much an estuary type biome. Very slow currents and all. This is however, in Venezuela, which qualifies as South America, rather than Central.

From my previous experience I can tell you, they are voracious with any live form that will fit in their mouth..

 

[CFC]

Maybe there is a south american colour morph of D.macualatus, my info came from baensch volume 3 and experience from keeping the species a few years back, i kept the fish with archerfish and other gobies amongst others and never had any problems with aggression

 

[cheirodon]

You are one lucky guy cheirodon, i can only dream of being able to fish and catch fish to keep in a aquarium, few of the coldwater species we have in the UK lend themselves to life in captivity.
I did see a site advertising fishing trips on the amazon and if i had a spare £1000 would have booked my self up in a flash, well maybe one day

You are welcome here anytime!
I might not always be able to go deep into the amazonia, but there's plenty of interesting places nearby to go fishing.
Question is, how'd you get them fishees back to the UK?
Maybe we can figure out a way, remeber one of my ancestors was a pirate!

 

[Shark_Lover]

He's cute!!!! Well, the first pic was.

 

[CFC]

You are welcome here anytime!
I might not always be able to go deep into the amazonia, but there's plenty of interesting places nearby to go fishing.
Question is, how'd you get them fishees back to the UK?
Maybe we can figure out a way, remeber one of my ancestors was a pirate!

You know i may just take you up on that one day B)

Getting the fish back wouldnt be as hard as imagined, if i were to make the trip i would be sure to apply for a importers license before hand and im sure a local exporter could help if offered enough money.

 

[Lateral Line]

>>> under a swarm of mosquitoes that was driving me nuts

Do you have any black water rivers to explore? In my exerience, the black water rivers are too acidic for mosquito larvae to thrive. You can sleep out on the beaches and retain your blood! The area up where the Pittier institute is springs to mind??? That's not far from Caracas.

I was in Ciudad Bolivar for a period also. The main Orinoco channels were thick and grimy, but upstream, only a couple of kilometers from the bridge, we found several pristine blackwater streams/rivers with excellent stock.

Oddly, not far from the airport at Canima, (sp. Angel Falls Tepui area), there were also large areas where one could collect blackwater fish within 10 minutes walk of the airport as all the tourists went the other way!!! Got some weird plants from there also...

I envy you your location.

 

[cheirodon]

One more, I believe this is an Oscar. I saw him under the dock when I first went out, and 2 hours later he was in the same spot, so I couldn't resist trying. He was almost too big for the little net I used, so his tail flapped outside of it.

He was very gentle in all his moves, never afraid it seemed.

He too went back, as I have no space for him now.

I will try to take some good pics of the gigantic guppies I caught (the female is almost 3 inches!). They, along with more wild guppies (different color scheme), are current tenants of the new tank.

 

[cheirodon]

>>> under a swarm of mosquitoes that was driving me nuts

Do you have any black water rivers to explore? In my exerience, the black water rivers are too acidic for mosquito larvae to thrive. You can sleep out on the beaches and retain your blood! The area up where the Pittier institute is springs to mind??? That's not far from Caracas.

I was in Ciudad Bolivar for a period also. The main Orinoco channels were thick and grimy, but upstream, only a couple of kilometers from the bridge, we found several pristine blackwater streams/rivers with excellent stock.

Oddly, not far from the airport at Canima, (sp. Angel Falls Tepui area), there were also large areas where one could collect blackwater fish within 10 minutes walk of the airport as all the tourists went the other way!!!

I envy you your location.

The place where I went is very close to shore, and river and sea mix in these canals I mentioned. You even get hi / low tides! The land is mostly dark grey sand, and filled with big crabs. Mosquito larvae grow in the crab holes that actually reach water depth. There they are uncontested, they have no natural predator in those holes, isolated from the main stream and above all, naturally fishless!

I had to fly some 300 miles south last week (almost to Canaima), work related, on a small plane, at about 3.500 feet. At that height you get to see a lot. So I marked some very promising black water rivers on my GPS for one day... sigh!

You must've relished on the amount of Ocellaris near Ciudad Bolívar!
I believe they're called Peacock Bass?

>>>I envy you your location

Like I told CFC, you're welcome here!

 

[cheirodon]

and im sure a local exporter could help if offered enough money.

Give me a little time and I'll know who the exporters are, what they have for breakfast, and who their parents where!
Remember this is a small country, population-wise at least.

 

[CFC]

Looks like you and i have a fishing trip to plan LL If only i had the money to spare ATM