Catching Darters, Seeing Flame Chubs

I went out today with a whole new crew of students - grad students Brian and Robert, and undergrads Valerie, Eric and Jeremy. We went to the upper Paint Rock River system for two related reasons: to catch tennessee snubnose darters for our developing gill parasite research program with Robert in the lead, and to examine the Estill Fork site and one on Lick Fork as good sites for a darter micropartitioning project lead by Brian. We immediately caught about 20+ snubnoses in our first seine net haul, which was amazing, along with a juvenile blotchside logperch that we let go, some greensides, and some rainbows that we also kept. I think we have it blocked out in our heads how and where to do the microhabitat survey work there. The water today was very low, typical for August, and will certainly look very different by November. Brian was the only one who had seen darters before, so it was an introduction for everyone else.

We also stopped on our way home at Lick Fork. This is the only site in the upper Paint Rock system where I found flame chubs at an historic site in my survey 4 years ago. This particular site is where a spring field is emptied by a small, clear run that flows under the road into Lick Fork. And when we pulled up and looked at this run today I could immediately see flame chubs schooling about. This is definitely one of the best flame chub populations around. Larkin Fork at this location is generally similar to Estill Fork, but smaller and more of a riffle/run system. I think we'll use that as a second site for Brian's work. It should contain most if not all of the species present at Estill Fork, so we'll see if similar habitat is used in a similar fashion, the whole point of this work. It's also easily accessible from the road without, from what I can tell, trespassing on anyone's property in an annoying way. We'll have to sit down and formally organize what we hope to do before the project is really underway.

School has started again this past week, and it wasn't too, too crazy, luckily enough!