Collecting: A Family Affair
                       By Robert Rice
                              
     When I first brought up the idea of a family collecting trip\vacation my 
wife rolled her eyes at me in that oh no
not again way and said "I'll think about it ".You see I have a 3 year old 
daughter, a wife , and a 130 pound Rottwieller named Magnus and last but not 
least a 85 Toyota Tercel
hatchback. So the logistics of fitting all the
aforementioned living things along with our clothes and my
collecting weapons seemed a little far fetched. As usual
though, I did not let that stop me , I dug out maps of the
Missouri Ozarks and began to scheme. My goal the Cardinal
shiner or its cousin the Bleeding shiner.
     After some serious thought I came up with a plan. If I could somehow tie 
this together with a day of trout fishing I was sure everyone would agree. So 
i made my move ,"Honey I said You know we ought to go trout fishing since we 
are so
close to the Ozarks now" Suddenly a strike "Hmmm trout
fishing in the Ozarks I've never trout fished before that
sounds kinda fun lets go....." at last my carefully laid
trap was sprung and  the trip was on.
     Then as luck would have it came the most ingenious
twist in my plan. My n'er do well brother in law kept
hinting we should go trout fishing .So I said sure, by the
way do you still have your old station wagon? With that a
home was found for my collecting gear and the date was set.
     After a little research it was decided that Bennett
Spring State Park would be our base of operations and to
satisfy the wife a cabin was rented for the week .Now we
were in business.
     So the big day came the wife , the kid, and the big Dog were all folded 
carefully into my little car and we rattled and hummed the 4 hours to Bennett 
Spring State Park. Just as we settled into our cabin my brother in laws death 
wagon
with its GM primer peeled paint job came lumbering in to let us know they 
were camping just down the road.As luck would
have it my brother in Law also noticed our cabin had a full kitchen and he  
began checking out the food. I'm sure making mental notes on his menu 
choices. So after we fed everyone
we made the trip into the state park and to the hatchery. I met a DNR 
Biologist and we talked for awhile  about native
fish.He seemed to only want to talk about trout (surprise). Did you know that 
we put in 2.25 trout for every tag sold
the previous day? He told my wife with a smile?
She was surprised," You mean all the fish come from here ?" Yep he said with 
pride . Most of the onlookers were very
impressed I on the other hand was slightly nauseated.
     On the drive back to the cabin my wife said ."So
fishing here is like Amusement Park fishing anyone can catch a fish if they 
pay for it heck you should just fish in the
hatchery?
     "Yep afraid so." .......she shook her head in
disbelief.
     Since we were supposed to be here on a trout fishing
trip we planned our fishing trip tomorrow would be the trout day , the day 
after the hiking day (really scout for fish)
and the last day would be our relax day before heading home (really 
collection day). So just before bed I plunked down
the 35 $ for everyone's fishing licenses trout tags etc.
then dozed off to bed.
     I awoke at 5 a.m. left everyone else sleeping and went to the head of 
the spring and waited ,it was beautiful. I
saw the sun rise , the smell of the crisp air was
invigorating as it mingled with the spring water. I watched and took mental 
notes as I had set myself a 1 hour time
limit on these Amusement park fish. Eventually a few other
fishermen made it in time for the starting whistle and we
were off. In typical park fashion about half the people had strikes their 
first cast and in the course of my hour I
caught several trout keeping 4 large ones for the table that night.
     I made it back to the cabin around 7:30 a.m. just in
time for my brother in law to make it over for breakfast. It was agreed that 
today should be trout day and everyone
should take their try at this amusement park fishing! So I
spent the day changing lures and offering tidbits of advice to my wife and 
child as they tried their hand at trout
fishing .As it turned out my daughter caught the big fish
for the afternoon and made  the trip a success it really was a great day.
     That evening we poured over maps and decided Rubiduox
creek outside of Waynesville in Pulaski County provided the best opportunity 
to collect. After we had finalized plans we watched the evening news with 
some chagrin as they announced a cold front was screaming in from the north 
and in 48 hours it was gonna be a Noah type day.So instead of 1 day scouting 
and 1 collecting we were now down to 1 day collecting.
     We left at 7 a.m. and arrived on site at 9 a.m. to say this was an 
extraordinary site would be an understatement
.It is attached to a city park with a playground and all the stuff to keep 
kids happy . Then there is a winding 200 yard gravel bar that leads to the 
secluded creek. Its waters are a mix of spring and river waters and support a 
brown trout
population which the locals protect with vigor.As a matter
of fact they have designated much of the creek as catch and release trophy 
trout waters.
     As I approached the bank darters scurried in all
directions and I began to foam at the mouth. Within a few
moments we had pulled out the seine and begun to make a pass with my dog 
taking the role of the beater driving the fish
to our nets. The creek itself is about 15 feet wide with the first two thirds 
being a gentle slope that drops of at the
base of a limestone shelf where it gains it's maximum depth of @ 6'. We were 
working the first two thirds in about 3
feet of water over gravel riffles in a moderately fast
stream with a measured water temp of 61 F.The air temp was
mid 80's and about perfect.
   When we pulled our first seine up my brother in law
gasped it was literally filled with 3-4 inch silvery fish
with red heads. We had found the bleeding shiner! We now had a new problem 
what do you do when your first seine full
fills all your storage buckets!
     Well within 30 minutes we were no longer collecting but were identifying 
and packing. We found the predominate
minnow to be the Bleeding Shiner (Luxilus zonatus), other
species included Plains Top minnow ( Fundulus sciadicus),
the Central Longear Sunfish (Lepomis Megalotis) and a
variety of sculpins that were released. We also found
Orangethroat Darters  (Etheostoma spectabile ) in abundance.
     After several detours we took our catch home they
seemed to be fine but within 48 hours the bleeding shiners
began to show fungus that resisted treatment with CLOUT and over 80% died 
within 10 days. A very frustrating end to our trip and I hope the launching 
point of better follow up care of captured species. Those that survived are 
doing excellent feeding well on frozen brine shrimp and blood worms and have 
really livened up the 55 gallon tank they inhabit.
     Overall the trip was a big success and my Wife calls it our best 
vacation ever .We plan on doing a repeat in the
spring of 1995 until then good-bye and good fishing!
     All material within this document is copyrighted to the author Robert 
Rice unless otherwise noted. I am the National Membership Director of NANFA 
(North American Native Fish Association) an organization devoted to the 
keeping native fish in the
aquarium. 
  If you are interested further in Native fish I  recommend you 
  check into the following resources Peterson's Field Guide to North 
  American Fishes by Larry M. Page or your local NANFA fish club chairman . 
  If you would like to reach me I can be reached at fido address 210\112 or 
  my snail mail address is 2213 Prytania Circle Navarre Florida 32566.
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