The Mosquitofish Saga Continues

With instructions to bag, or rather jar, some mosquitofish from Steve Gephard, Noah and I set out last week to do just that, and hunt down some other new fish as well. I scraped the label off a jar and we stopped on the way to get some isopropyl alcohol. No, this was not going to be a "dead or alive" capture. We needed these fish preserved. We got to the pond and Noah started dip netting. I wanted to get at least one of each sex. Getting females is easy, but there are an awful lot more of them than there are males. It didn't take that long though to sort a male out. I pressed on with my mission to catch one of the fly since it would almost certainly end up being my life Western mosquitofish. Eventually, I did, and we had everything we had come to this pond for except a mudminnow or shiner... next time. Or maybe never, there.

Gambusia affinis (?) Lifer fish #131, rank species

Then we went looking for goldfish, another non-native that isn't the easiest to come by in CT. In a small pond where I'd seen a number of goldfish in the past, we managed to spot only one. And catching it wasn't possible, because it seemed to literally fad away as we looked at it. Clearly it must have just sunk behind some weeds or leaf litter, bit in the dark water it didn't look like it moved, it just looked like it faded away. We figured there wasn't much chance of catching goldfish that were able to phase in and out of this plane of reality, but there were other fish in that pond too. It had a population of the most wacky looking hybrid and pure breed sunfish I've ever seen. Sorting through a bunch of those, I was able to get a new lifer hybrid, bluegill x green sunfish. 

Lepomis macrochirus x Lepomis cyanellus, Lifer #132, rank hybrid.

Ditto.

At a final pond, we ended up just catching some more great looking sunfishes. I'll never complain about a colorful sunfish. Ever. 

Considering I haven't caught a new species or hybrid in months, that was a pretty good day locally. Tomorrow is liable to be even better, as Noah and I attempt to target three wildly different species. Hopefully we catch at least one of them. If not, it will still be an interesting little trip. So stay tuned for that.

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