trojannemo
Fishaholic
hey guys.
last saturday morning a couple of us headed out to Big Cypress National Preserve to see what we could catch.
We tried dipnetting, fishing and castnetting. We fished absolutely nothing with the rods, but had better luck with the nets.
Here are some pictures for you:
I believe this is Florida Gar. we must have caught over 20 of these, anywhere from 10-16 inches!
The other fish we caught the most were Mayan cichlids...must have caught 15+ of these. most of them had very strong red coloration.
The other new and exciting catch - a 12"+ walking catfish...we were all scared of it and didnt know how to handle it to take a proper picture...
Also caught a juvenile Florida Largemouth Bass on the castnet:
This was the biggest Fundulus chrysotus specimen i've ever seen to date!
Also caught many many many young Flagfish...unfortunately didn't catch a full grown adult in breeding colors
Some of the sunfish:
some of the dangerous wildlife we encountered
besides what's pictured we caught gambusia, least killifish, bluefin killifish, mollies, spotted tilapia & warmouth.
on the way back we hit a spot (parking lot of the Big Cypress Gallery) that was full of grass shrimp. with 3 scoops we took home more than 500 grass shrimp
-----
that same saturday at night I had arranged to meet with a fellow dipnetter/aquarist from down south. we had been talking via email about collecting midas cichlids. he had told me how he was catching them at night from the canal behind his mother's house. so we finally met up at about 7:30pm and gave it a try.
this was a completely different experience: i was in knee-deep water, sometimes higher, in complete darkness with only flashlights illuminating the way. no vegetation to speak of, so we would spot a fish and go after it by blinding it with the flashlight. the canal was brackish, so I was very surprised to not only catch midas but also fish that I had taken for granted as full-on freshwater fish!
i'm not making this up...
the fish I was going after!
caught 2 midas cichlids that night. one about 2" and this one about 3.5" or so. unbelievable experience! this guy was hiding under a rock, so we spotted him, lift the rock while keeping a light on him, then the guy i went with put his net in front of it, and then just basically scooped it into the net with his hand!
also caught a darter - is this a sand darter or a swamp darter? it was caught on vegetation-free, sandy bottom brackish water...
and a new species to me. i think this fish is a saltwater species? very very twitchy. caught over 10 of them. not a single one survived after about 20 minutes in the styrofoam container. every other fish survived, every single one of these guys died right away! why is that?
besides what's pictured we caught gambusia, bluefin killifish, crayfish, ramshorn snails & trumpet snails.
-----
it was a fun day I think, and a very successful one in terms of amount of fish caught.
hope you enjoyed the pictures
last saturday morning a couple of us headed out to Big Cypress National Preserve to see what we could catch.
We tried dipnetting, fishing and castnetting. We fished absolutely nothing with the rods, but had better luck with the nets.
Here are some pictures for you:
I believe this is Florida Gar. we must have caught over 20 of these, anywhere from 10-16 inches!
The other fish we caught the most were Mayan cichlids...must have caught 15+ of these. most of them had very strong red coloration.
The other new and exciting catch - a 12"+ walking catfish...we were all scared of it and didnt know how to handle it to take a proper picture...
Also caught a juvenile Florida Largemouth Bass on the castnet:
This was the biggest Fundulus chrysotus specimen i've ever seen to date!
Also caught many many many young Flagfish...unfortunately didn't catch a full grown adult in breeding colors
Some of the sunfish:
some of the dangerous wildlife we encountered
besides what's pictured we caught gambusia, least killifish, bluefin killifish, mollies, spotted tilapia & warmouth.
on the way back we hit a spot (parking lot of the Big Cypress Gallery) that was full of grass shrimp. with 3 scoops we took home more than 500 grass shrimp
-----
that same saturday at night I had arranged to meet with a fellow dipnetter/aquarist from down south. we had been talking via email about collecting midas cichlids. he had told me how he was catching them at night from the canal behind his mother's house. so we finally met up at about 7:30pm and gave it a try.
this was a completely different experience: i was in knee-deep water, sometimes higher, in complete darkness with only flashlights illuminating the way. no vegetation to speak of, so we would spot a fish and go after it by blinding it with the flashlight. the canal was brackish, so I was very surprised to not only catch midas but also fish that I had taken for granted as full-on freshwater fish!
i'm not making this up...
the fish I was going after!
caught 2 midas cichlids that night. one about 2" and this one about 3.5" or so. unbelievable experience! this guy was hiding under a rock, so we spotted him, lift the rock while keeping a light on him, then the guy i went with put his net in front of it, and then just basically scooped it into the net with his hand!
also caught a darter - is this a sand darter or a swamp darter? it was caught on vegetation-free, sandy bottom brackish water...
and a new species to me. i think this fish is a saltwater species? very very twitchy. caught over 10 of them. not a single one survived after about 20 minutes in the styrofoam container. every other fish survived, every single one of these guys died right away! why is that?
besides what's pictured we caught gambusia, bluefin killifish, crayfish, ramshorn snails & trumpet snails.
-----
it was a fun day I think, and a very successful one in terms of amount of fish caught.
hope you enjoyed the pictures
