anyone interested in natives

[vladsbtch]

Now that the weather is good I will be going out trying to get some natives. Anyone interested in going with me pm me.

[jeremyh81]

I was just out fishing last night on Percy Priest. When it got dark out and I was done casting, I got out the flashlight and started scanning the very shallow waters close to the bank. One small, 2-3 inch fish caught my eye. It was mostly silver with pearlescent coloring.

So I get home and search the 'net about keeping North American native fish in home aquariums. Here's what I found:

Native Fish for the Home Aquarium

It's a rather lengthy article with no pictures to reference, but a good read none the less. This has piqued my interest in keeping any smaller Tennessee natives, or even integrating them into my South American community.

I would love to hear anyone's advice and suggestions on collecting native species. Does TN require a collector's license?

[jgentry]

What are you looking for? Longear sunfish are probably the most colorful and are real easy to keep.

[jtrotter77]

I kept natives for years. Longear sunfish,rainbow darters,tangerine darters and Northern Studfish (killifish) are some of the prettiest fish we have and all are pretty easy to keep. The stud fish need a tight lid as they are very good jumpers. and the Tangerine are in East TN and more difficult to catch but the others are very east to catch and really easy to find.

[bunnie1978]

I went with some friends (that work in the biology dept at Austin Peay) to Cumberland River last weekend. These people know what just about every plant along the trail was and I learned alot - not half of which I remember, except that Hackberry trees have an interesting wort-type pattern on their trunk, different frogs can be identified by their callings, American Bullfrog tadpoles are cute, Crayfish get really big (Nathan picked one up to show me when we were walking in the water and I about had a heart attack), and it's easy to get stuck in the mud in a swamp!

It was awesome. We saw darters and mosquito fish too, like millions of them! And the tadpoles were all huddled together, from just a couple feet away, it looked like a black mud patch just under the surface of the water!

[vladsbtch]

I am interested in getting more banded sculpins. I have discovered that my sculpin given the choice will eat the largest fish in the tank and leave the little ones alone. It has eaten 2 of the Seminole killifish that I put in there. and they were as big as him. I got them from the critter, sometimes you get them and the mosquito fish with the ghost shrimp. I would like to get some of the sculpins breeding as they are not very common in our hobby. I want to go to the duck river as it has the most water life of all rivers in the USA. I read about it in the national geographic. I hope for some darters too.
As far as catching the fish I have bought a fishing license cause you are allowed to catch your own bait fish. So I figure that should cover it. I hope so anyways.
As soon as I get all fixed up I am going to be wanting to go. Heck every day I yearn to be out at the creek or a river.

[bunnie1978]

I was told by the guy that took me to the Cumberland river last weekend that it is illegal to take any fish away from a lake or river alive. You are supposed to only catch fish and release or kill (bait). There are laws about collecting plants as well for use in the aquarium but they apply to public parks, as I understand it. I could be wrong about that. I also don't know if there is any significant enforcement of the laws.

[bunnie1978]

I have been looking online, and I can't seem to find anything that indicates one way or the other for non-game native fish, only regulations on specific species.