2017 NANFA convention part 2 - Meramec River

Gerry and I had fishing plans for day 2 of the NANFA convention, but they were not as ambitious as the previous day because we were attending presentations in the morning and the banquet and auction in the evening.  We started out at the Meramec River in the state park.  Gerry fished bank rods, and I caught micros near shore.  I caught northern studfish, bigeye shiner, wedgespot shiner, and rainbow darter.  I needed help with the ID of this wedgespot shiner - thanks Bob!

Wedgespot Shiner (Notropis greenei)


After the presentations - which were very good - we snuck out for a bit more microfishing.  We drove a half hour away to Blue Springs Creek.  Here we found active chub mounds with carmine shiners, Ozark minnows, bleeding shiners, and rainbow darters.  I held my camera underwater and snapped a few photos.  They're not great, but if you look closely you can see all four species in the photo below.



The rainbow darters looked like they were only hanging around so they could eat freshly deposited eggs.  If you look in the bottom of the photo below, you can see a few with their heads buried in the rocks, looking for food.  The fish on the right is an Ozark minnow.



It's pretty easy to catch fish when they're in spawning mode.  We took the time to catch one of each of the shiners.  Man were they colorful!  The carmine shiners were blazing, and the Ozark minnows were interesting because their fins were yellow instead of red, which I've seen in other drainages such as the Current River.

Carmine Shiner (Notropis percobromus)


Ozark Minnow (Notropis nubilus)


Bleeding Shiner (Luxilus zonatus)


Further downstream I found a school of Ozark minnows in a riffle.  They must be comfortable spawning without chub mounds, whereas the carmine shiners were concentrated on the mounds.  This is my favorite photo from the trip.



I spotted a saddled darter in the riffle, but it quickly darted out of view (no pun intended).  The species in the Meramec drainage has been split from the Missouri saddled darter that we saw in the Gasconade drainage.  I looked around for another one, but all I could find were rainbow darters.

Rainbow Darter (Etheostoma caeruleum)


This riffle was pretty small, so I headed downstream looking for a bigger one.  The next riffle was very shallow and very fast.  It looked like good habitat for saddled darters, but seeing them would be an issue.  I got in the water near the middle and slowly worked upstream.  The surface of the water becomes smooth at the upstream end of a riffle, so that was the only place I'd be able to sight fish darters.



Sure enough, this riffle had several saddled darters.  They spooked more easily than the rainbow darters, but eventually I found one that didn't bold and was feeling hungry.  Success!

Meramec Saddled Darter (Etheostoma erythrozonum) - new hook & line species #445


I showed Gerry the saddled darters, and soon he had caught his lifer as well.  We continued exploring downstream and found another riffle with even more of them.  We also saw a pair of greenside darters, a lone fantail darter, northern hogsuckers, hornyhead chubs, stonerollers, northern studfish, and smallmouth bass.  After much frustration, Gerry entered a zen like state and was able to catch one of the stonerollers.  We grabbed fast food for lunch and headed back to the convention to catch the rest of the talks.

On the drive home the next morning we stopped at Carlyle on the Kaskaskia River.  I spent roughly four hours trying to catch a gizzard shad, but ended up empty handed.  However, between the two of us we did catch shortnose gar, spotted gar, bighead carp, yellow bass, white bass, bluegill, and freshwater drum.  A lot of shad were snagged by accident.  We saw someone else catch a silver carp, and Gerry had something big on the end of his line that broke off before we could ID it.

Shortnose Gar (Lepisosteus platostomus)


Thanks to Gerry for being an excellent road trip and allowing your car to become very dirty over the course of three days.  It was good to fish central Missouri again, and it was really good to see old NANFA friends as well as make new ones.  Next year's convention is going to be in Georgia.  I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it, but it sounds like a good one!