My son and I started setting up a Native Species tank for this summer. Trying to get one of each of the DPR natives that we can catch for the tank. We will releas e them all when he goes back to school.
From the weekend we have a Grass Shrimp (separate tank)spotted bass and what looks like a little Warmouth. There is a larger Warmouth hiding under a rock. The weather and water level make it hard to find anything lately around my stretch.
Its only a 15G so we have to keep them on the small side. All decorations are from the DPR as well. Its a blast catching little Minnows with the net from the river and watching the Bass suck them right up. He or the larger warmouth have also eaten 3 crayfish.. which we missed.. but they gone!
Reminds me of the time my BF & I were fishing Beck way back when. I caught some 'gills & threw one in a bucket & took it home. The next Monday I took it to school & threw it in the big tank in the biology lab.
It ate every other damned thing in the tank. The teacher wasn't happy. :lol: Got an 'A' anyway.
i always see those little pike in late july when the water gets clear. I checked on the dpr yesterday for a short trip and was surprised by how stained it was. maybe 6 inch visibility at best in northern cook
How fun. We kept two little madtoms from the Fox. They hid in our volcano and only showed themselves at night.
When I was kid I kept some of our native species and always enjoyed feeding the largemouth bass big crickets that I found in our garage in the summer. Topwater action!
Any native animal I've ever kept and studied as a pet has always been released back where I found it after only a short while ... with the exception of a neat tiger salamander I found crossing a local country road. Kept that one for an entire year and released it at a low spot deep in a forest.
Mississippi grass shrimp like the dozen or so found in the Des Plaines River have been rather uncommon in Illinois due to soil erosion that has clouded the water and killed many of the plants the shrimp feed on. The LCFPD calls the shrimp's discovery "encouraging" as their presence is an indication of cleaner water and improving habitat around the Des Plaines River area.
According to the LCFPD, the only other known locations are in the Kankakee River and Otter Creek in Kane County.
It might have been a green sunfish. A green sunfish killed absolutely all the fish in my native species tank, including largemouth that were 4x bigger than it.
Legality: The only thing I see mentioned that would be a problem if stopped, would be having mini-pike in your possession while fishing.
Just don't drink it accidentally. Mini-pike have mini-teeth. :wink:
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