Creek Diving II -- The Fish Messiah

[Calico Goat]

Creek Diving II -- The Fish Messiah--Tell Your Stories

Second and last part. I released the clams, which I will get from my LFS (If I remember correctly, they used to have some in their goldfish tanks...) and went on a tadpole hunt. Much harder than it sounds. After about an hour of rooting around in the detritus, I straightened up to appease the ache in my back and LO AND BEHOLD! There was a TWO FOOT LONG CARP in the creek!
I was, needless to say, surprised.
It was stranded in a large area, separated by two natrual "dams". It was somewhat beaten up, obviously by trying to cross these. Either it was stranded or it was dumped there--we haven't had THAT much rain, and it was not there yesterday...
The poor thing was tired, but from observtion not at Death's door. It was, however, very tame, allowing itself to be looked over for serious injuries and even submitting to a few gentle pats on its dorsal fin (it grunted at me, like rafes do when caught), unlike other large carp I have encountered, which lunge at you and bolt away.
It attracted what looked like every other fish in the creek, even some wild dwarf catfish (none of which I managed to net), which all schooled in its general vicinity.
I got the tadpole and the rocks that I was looking for, and hightailed it back home.
It's in a good-sized portion oof the creek, a deep, sluggish section, to be more precise, and if the area can support it I look forward to visiting it until the next big rain...

Has anyone out there ever had a similar experience, i.e., going out for the ordinary and finding something truly unexpected, either at your LFS or local creek? Looking forward to any stories...

 

[Fish-Head Aric]

Monsters in the woods!

I took my family out in the woods once looking for golden chantrelles (mushrooms). We were near a very small seasonal creekbed and my wife, over yonder, goes, "Aric! Come look at this frog!"

I came over to see, and this brownish head was peeking out from under a fern. Something not right here, thinks I. I pulled the fern frond away and WOW MY GARSH! A 12 inch long, gleaming glossy, chocolate with black cheetah spots salamander! I've spent a lot of time in the woods and had never seen such a newt as this!

Winter was coming on, and I did that "anti-WWF" thing and said, "We'll take him home for that unused fishtank!" Idea being since winter can be ugly, maybe we would be able to take care of the critter for a few months and then bring him back after the worst of it. The kids, then ages 5 and 7, were all for it of course. We loaded up our mushroom buckets of moss, dirt and such to create the habitat, and "Spickle" (kids named him) spent four months getting fat and living large. He grew a couple more inches. The kids loved feeding him - he'd take food from the hands (worms, etc.) or hunt crickets and other things that we bought him.

We always enjoy doing unusual things with aquariums, and this was definitely right there.

Early April rolled around and we took Spickle back to the same place we found him, setting him under a big rotting log for a quick hiding place.

The following weekend we went to an Earth Day nature-carnival thing in town and described what we had been sheltering. The woman, some naturalist wearing a uniform designed to look like government but not, just about had her eyes bug out and she scolded us about having taken an endangered species from the woods! I replied, "Well hmmmm.... Giant Pacific Salamander, you say? I guess it survived one more bad winter, and in time to find a mate, make babies and further its species."

I went and did some research and found out that the salamander, while uncommon, was not "endangered."

Here's a site for more info to those interested: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/narcam/idguide/diteneb.htm

 

[Calico Goat]

Heh, I did the same thing with a big Tiger Salamander my neighbor found on her porch...I forget what I named it. I like "Spickle" though.

Another story is how I got my eel--we got him for the community tank and never saw him again. My mother and I...well, after a while, we kind of forgot about him. Then, during a weekly cleaning, guess who we disturbed! After not seeing him for about eight months...perfectly healthy and a hard devil to catch!

 

[PurpleSmurf]

My family used to go fishing at some local ponds every Friday night. One night, I was walking around the endge of the pond looking for fish schools to cast into when I saw this enormous shadow just under the waters surface. It must have been as big as me at the time (about 4ft) and my first reaction was to jump in and try netting it.

I didn't get it, but I touched touched it. Largest catfish I think I've ever seen.

 

[Emg]

OOOOO.....I like this thread !!

Thanks for sharing your stories !

 

[NatakuTseng]

I've caught a few 3ft Rainbow Trout, and a few 30" Brook trout up here. I've seen a 6-7ft Lake Sturgeon that was pretty awesome. I spent 90% of my time as a kid out in the woods, rivers, ponds, and lakes around so I've seen a lot of stuff in the wild, few weeks ago I caught an Albino bullhead, that was a thrill. Yeasterday I had a moose less than 5ft away from me, that was a little scary, lol.

 

[Lobo.]

searching for tadpoles (a lot happens while doing this evidently) i came across a puddle of water that was about dry (only about 1inch deep and a couple feet wide) from a drought that was going on. i searched it and found what seemed to be the last surviveing tadpole in it. After about a five minute struggle (the dang thing went under every rock in the tiny puddle) i netted it only to discover that it was a tiny yellow bullhead catfish.
i was estatic, even though i didnt find the fish bait i wanted, i was able to take it home and it now resides in a 10 gal (will be released back into its home when it gets bigger)

 

[SnakeIce]

the field next to my parents place floods when they have a wet year and the resulting shallow pond can last untill a dry year hits. One of those dry years I went over there as the last of the water was drying out of the ditch bordering the field. I rescued a 6" small mouth bass, 4 or 5 2-4" sunfish, some pickerels, and oodles of madtom catfish, tadpoles and gambusia.

we had a 6' plastic wadeing pool that we filled up and revived the game fish and kept some of them in for quite a while. we took the game fish down to the permanent water and released them after they recovered.

that wadeing pool, or its replacement has been setup at my parents house ever since that first haul of fish.

 

[Slappy*McFish]

I had a similar experience to yours, Calico...in which I found a huge carp trapped in a small body of water. It was back in '96 right after Hurricane Fran ripped through my home town. I went down to a lake near my house to check things out as the dam overspill had massively flooded during the hurricane. At the bottom of the spill is normally a few small pools of water and a creek. One of the pools of water, which was about maybe 10' in diameter and 2' deep at the deepest point, was full of fish that got caught in the overflow from the dam and were trapped in this pool. One of those fish was a HUGE carp...I'd say probably around 3-4' long. There were hundreds of other fish in there too. Bluegill, crappie, small bass, catfish and tons of sunfish and/or juveniles of the fishes listed above. It was an impressive sight to say the least. I wish I had taken some pics.

 

[bdobosz]

I have kind of neat spot by my house. There is a dam area on the lake where the water drops off a small pool below. Then small streams head from the pool back out to the river. During the dry season the streams will become too shallow for the fish to pass through so they get trapped in pool area below the dam. This area is probably 15’ X 15’ and 3’ deep. We see large Musky, Northern, and Walleye in there all the time. That’s about as close as I ever get to a Musky seeing as they wont ever bite my lures… :clap: