More Fish Hunting! Beehive Creek and Manawatu River

[Stella]

ok so I did some more fish hunting this weekend.... :roll:

The first was on Saturday. Went for a walk with a few friends on the Beehive Creek walkway up the Pohangina Valley. The creek pretty much WAS the track, so I had a great time! It was teeming with fry, so obviously there was something non-diadromous there. Eventually managed to find a lovely upland bully, maybe 5cm long.

Didn't have any luck with the rest of the stream so on the way back I let the bully go.

Then promptly found and caught five more!

I only wanted a pair, but as I couldn't tell them apart I took all five home and will return the spares. Now I can tell there are two females and three males. Lovely patterning (orange face spots). Though they might be a little small for what I want.

Today we went to the Manawatu River, slightly upstream of the Ashhurst Bridge.

It was just the two of us and it seemed to take AGES before we caught anything. Finally I caught a good-sized common bully. After an hour we had a good but small collection of fish:

Five large commons

One small common

two small Cran's

1.6 eels (the 0.6 refers to the eel I caught which escaped as I tried to get it into the jar, twice.... little sod)

The river is SERIOUSLY WARM and really algaed and mucky. All signs of low flow and high nutrient and soil run off :evil: :evil: :evil: It is just getting worse and worse.

Didn't catch any torrentfish, and I suspect it was the state of the river (I have caught them there before). They have probably found somewhere cooler and cleaner for the moment.

Three of the commons came home. Some have really lovely markings. One suspected-male is rather dark, and the other two have quite striking gold flecks along the sides.

I am gathering these fish to pad out my kokopu tanks following the Nasty Disease of Dec '08. Bullies are such cool aquarium fish and I want to have a selection so I can watch inter-species interaction, and be able to show visitors what they are like.

[snorkelboy]

They are cool alright. Last wkend we had a 4yr old visitor who was immediately drawn to the tank, inevitably slapping his hands all over it. They didnt blink an eye, not phased one bit. Cool as a cucumber they were... Fish&Game do a great job of looking out for our freshwater resources. Mainly pushing their own barrow of trout angling, but they're great watchdogs all the same. Sorry to hear of U'r Dec 08 disaster. Bummer.

[museeumchick]

Sounds marvellous! A pity about the state of the river though

I have my sister visiting next weekend and methinks I am going to take her kick sampling for bugs (the turitea and perhaps other patches). Fun fun fun

[Stella]

:lol: Museeumchick you sound like a great sister to have!

I was going to invite you along but the weather looked dodgy then we wound up going quite spontaneously.

The common bullies seem much more inclined to hide than the uplands. I think it is a size thing. The uplands are 3-4cm and the commons are 5-6, and i have always found smaller bullies adapt MUCH faster. That goes for all native fish in my experience.