Puddle Shiners and Rock-flipping Sculpins (Western PA Pt. 7)

 Our finale full day in Pennsylvania was upon us and Noah, Jake and I wanted to end the trip on a high note. With lower pressure, cloud cover, and showers in the morning forecast we hoped our luck with the bigger predators might improve. Add to it, my grandfather would be joining us on the water for the first bit of the day, it seemed nothing could be better. At first we may be in luck, as the redhorse, drum, and carp were much more active. One thing I forgot to count on is how bad I sometimes am at hooking bottom feeding roughfish, especially suckers and carp. I have days where I just whiff take after take and this was one of them. I whiffed a few carp. I whiffed a nice drum. Then I reefed the set on a huge redhorse and my leader snapped with a sickening whip-crack. It's a good thing I can nymph channel catfish, apparently, because I got a few of them. They weren't big but I'll take any cat on the fly any time, and indicator nymphing them was new to me. 

Jake ended up getting himself one smallmouth redhorse on a worm, but as the morning wore on it seemed we might not get the big fish we were hoping to. We all aught fish at least, and for my money, Some of Noah's were the funniest. There was a puddle on the walkway above the tunnel, where fisherman stand and soak bait in the deep, roiling dam discharge below. They'd clearly been discarding their minnows in that puddle as it was full of them. 

He got one golden shiner, and I think a spottail shiner too. That these fish were surviving effectively in the puddle demonstrates the problems with discarding live bait. A heavy rain could so easily provide these fish a way into the river, and these weren't all native species. Fisherman are not conscious enough about such things, a tiny cyprinid species could wreck havoc on some important native species and the habitat they need.  

As it began to seem our options at this spot were exhausted, we decided to move along. My grandfather headed out and Noah, Jake and I went to the next spot. It was a small freestone stream suggested to us by my grandfather, where we stood a reasonable shot at Jake getting his lifer rainbow trout, as well as catching good catfish bait for that night in the form of big creek chubs. We filled the bait quota but found no trout, but the odd bass instead.

As we were fishing downstream, a family hopped in just below us and continued on down. Not wanting to fish water that had just been fished, we turned back upstream and headed back towards the cars. Noah rushed ahead as Jake and I lollygagged and fished our way up. We ended up finding a pool with some good darter and sculpin habitat, and started micro fishing it. I flipped some rocks and found that some large mottled sculpins were residing under them. It didn't take long for both Jake and I to catch one, and when Noah wondered where the hell we were and came back down he had little trouble getting them to eat either. At the time, this was a lifer for me, but sine then I'e learned that the tiny sculpin I got further up in the Allegheny watershed was a mottled too. 

Lifelist fish #176, Mottled sculpin, Cottus bairdii. Rank: Species

Sculpins are awesome, I really do adore them. They are beautiful little fish and very charismatic. And honestly, any fish that has the gall to still eat after you've essentially lifted up the roof of his house in order to find him is pretty cool. 

Jake then diverted attention to darters and it payed off, he got a lovely fan tail, a lifer for him.

Fantail darter, Etheostoma flabellare

Then we all caught bluntnose minnows, which were lifers for Noah and I.

Lifelist fish #177. Bluntnose minnow, Pimephales notatus. Rank: species.

With lifers now under our belts, at least we felt some goals had been met and we decided to change spots again and seek bigger fish yet again. 

Until next time,

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

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