Look everyone, it’s a ... minnow
- Michelle Wood
- May 24, 2021
- 952
I spent countless hours as a kid playing in the stream that ran through our farm. There are various photos of me with my prize catches — “look at this giant minnow!”
Looking back, those sunny days in the creek started the meandering path of my career in conservation. So last summer when we found out the Ohio EPA was going to do a biological assessment of Rush Run for an upcoming project spearheaded by the Holmes County engineer, I jumped at the chance to help, along with several other staff members.
Rush Run is a small stream near County Road 1 that is a tributary to Killbuck Creek. The stream is maybe 3 miles long and flows through farmland, forest and pasture and is creating maintenance issues with the county road. A stream-restoration project will restore it back to the way nature intended, with meanders, boulders, shallow banks, a floodplain and vegetation to hold the banks in place. As part of that project, a preproject biological assessment is required by Ohio EPA.
The “fish kickers and bug pickers,” as they refer to themselves, measure off a section of the stream to electroshock and collect macroinvertebrates (insects that live in a stream, usually in the larval stage). The electroshocking stuns the fish, and they float to the surface. One guy shocks the stream, and another guy nets the fish and puts them in a floating trap.
You wouldn’t believe how many fish floated to the top in such a small stream. Even the fish guys seemed impressed and overwhelmed by the numbers, and I could see why. They dumped all the fish into a tank, set up about a dozen buckets, and started sorting by species and ultimately counting each fish.
“You can help us sort,” one of the fish guys said.
“Sure,” I said cheerfully as I grabbed my first victim and went to gently toss it in with its kind. But wait — each of the buckets held small silver or gray fish that to my untrained eye looked exactly the same. I should inject here the meandering path to my current career didn’t include a fish ID class. The guys tried to be helpful. They pointed out the various difference in mouths, gills, dorsal fins, bellies, lateral stripes and eyes. I could get a few of them — some of the daces and darters have colors, and the stonerollers have big lips. But the rest were … minnows. It was hopeless.
Minnows, the generic term most of us use for small fish, are just one species of stream fishes and include about 15 subspecies of chubs, dace, shiners and, yes, minnows. And even though I knew Ohio streams are full of diversity, the study reiterated that fact to the point of incredibility.
After returning to the office, I dug out an ODNR Division of Wildlife “Stream Fishes of Ohio” field guide, which is a fantastic resource full of interesting facts and photos to help identify stream fishes. It states Ohio is laced with over 60,000 miles of streams with over 170 species and subspecies of fish, some of which, like the rainbow darter, are just as pretty as a tropical fish from the pet store.
Netting fish in a clear stream and observing them is a great way to get kids engaged in conservation and learn more about our natural resources (note that collecting fish, even for short-term examination, requires an Ohio fishing license). Hands-on exploring uncovers the diversity of nature all around us and just might spark an interest in a career in conservation.
The Holmes Soil & Water Conservation District goals are to promote conservation practices that lead to healthy streams full of life. For more information call our office at 330-674-SWCD ext. 3, email holmes.swcd@gmail.com, visit our website at HolmesSWCD.com or follow on Facebook.